And a Teenager Shall Lead Them
by AM83220
Summary: On an Earth conquered by Dark Specter, one lone Ranger journeys to find humanity's last hope.
1. Chapter 1

**And A Teenager Shall Lead Them**

Disclaimer: I do not own the Power Rangers or any of the characters used in this tale, with the exception of Karen.

**Remember always that this is an alternate universe, very different from the one you know. In this universe a group known as the Psycho Rangers appeared and in two days succeeded in defeating the Astro Rangers. During their final battle in the center of Earth's Angel Grove Psycho Red slew Andros as he saved Ashley from Psycho Yellow, only for her to subsequently fall regardless of his heroism. Psycho Green mortally wounded Carlos and together Psycho Pink and Psycho Blue killed Zhane. Only T.J. and Cassie were able to evade certain death by teleporting away. Their Megaship was not able to escape Earth's orbit, however, as the enemy fleet had arrived simultaneously with the Psycho Ranger's assault. The ship disappeared and was never found. **

**With the Astro Rangers all but annihilated, Dark Specter and the cybernetically mentally altered Princess Astronema attacked the Earth, finally conquering the world. With their sovereignty established they constructed several gigantic factories to produce war materials and turned their attention to bringing the remainder of the galaxy under their dominance. **

**That was two years ago. The Psycho Rangers were soon called away to lead Dark Specter's armies against other planets and it's been many months since any of them have been seen on Earth. The Dark Fortress, too, has long since moved on and is currently believed to be orbiting the recently subjugated planet of Triforia. Ecliptor was named Regent of Earth and rules the planet in the name of his master. Humanity is kept in bondage by an occupation force of Quantrons, but while mankind's will to resist has been blunted by the tens of millions killed in the initial conquest, it has not been destroyed . . . **

The hot sun beat down relentlessly on the auburn-haired adolescent. As he wiped the perspiration from his forehead for roughly the thousandth time and wearily adjusted his backpack, seventeen year-old Justin Stewart began to wonder if maybe this hadn't been such a good idea after all.

His best guess was that the rebel camp was somewhere in these mountains, but with Lt. Stone dead there was no one to tell him exactly where to go or how to contact them. All he could do was trek endlessly across the lower areas of this rocky, inhospitable terrain, hoping against hope that his educated speculation was right and that he would be fortunate enough to stumble across some sign of the rebels.

As a plan it might be considered by some to be overly optimistic.

Still, given the circumstances, it was the best course of action his one hundred and fifty IQ brain had been able to devise, and he wasn't ready to give up on it yet. Squaring his shoulders and ignoring his fatigue he marched on, wending his way along the gap between the two vast piles of rock towering on either side of him.

ΩΩΩΩΩ

"It's almost four thirty and there's been no sign of anyone. It's time for us to go, Fred," the attractive, blond eighteen year-old girl told her companion.

"Ken and Sarah said Lt. Stone was gonna send his next group of recruits to the rendezvous today," the tall, dark-haired and backward cap-wearing teen argued.

"Maybe he changed his mind. Or maybe they did. Whatever happened, they're not here and we shouldn't be anymore either. It's been four hours, Fred. No one is coming."

"You're right," he conceded with a sigh. "Let's head back."

Fred Kelman couldn't resist lingering for one last moment, glancing down at the rendezvous point far below them. It was a little notch in the rocks, one completely exposed from their cliff top. Standard practice was to stay prone, just stick your head out over the edge and make sure the recruits looked okay and were alone before taking the trip down to meet them.

They wouldn't be doing that today and the realization left Fred more than a little dispirited. Bringing new people into the resistance was in its own way every bit as satisfying as participating in a strike at a Quantron barracks. Returning to camp from the rendezvous point empty-handed felt like failure and he loathed failing, at anything.

"You realize we're not even going to make it halfway back before nightfall," Karen commented conversationally to him as he got up and moved to her side.

The teenager shrugged, unconcerned.

"It won't kill us to spend a night away from camp. And they know it sometimes takes us more than a day to get back with the new recruits, so they won't be worried."

"I wasn't actually planning on sleeping on rock tonight."

"You could always use me as your pillow."

"In your dreams, Kelman!" she snapped back, but the blush on her face made Fred grin.

He let her take the lead on the way back, since she knew the route every bit as well as he did . . . and there was a better view from behind.

He was undeniably attracted to Karen: she was brave, pretty and certainly tough as nails. He thought she liked him too, but try as he might he hadn't managed to progress beyond the buddy stage with her. Even after all this time working side by side she still kept a distance between them, at least emotionally. What did he have to do to get through to her? Maybe an unmistakably romantic gesture was in order? Of course it was hard to send a girl flowers when you lived in a mountain range.

While pondering his dating difficulties the adolescent ended up walking right into the object of his affections. With a grunt he actually knocked her over and fell on top of her, his weight and the weight of his backpack pinning her to the stone. Okay, this would definitely make an impression on her, albeit not the one he wanted.

"Get off me!" she hissed from beneath him, and he wasted no time in doing so.

"Sorry!" he cried as he scrambled to his feet.

"Shhh!" she urged him, pointing downward.

In the valley below them was another person, also wearing a backpack, with a sleeping bag attached to it. His light brown hair was arranged in a bowl cut and beneath his backpack his muscle shirt was royal blue. Blue jeans and dark blue sneakers completed his outfit. He was heading away from them, moving in the same direction they were going.

"Shit! Just what we needed!" Karen growled.

"What do you mean? Maybe that's a recruit from Stone!"

"Then why didn't he come to the rendezvous point? That's where they're supposed to go, and nobody has missed it yet. This guy could be anyone!"

"You think he's just roaming around these mountains for fun?"

"That's more likely than him being a recruit who go lost. And if isn't here to join us it would be a mistake to let him know we're here. Security, remember?"

"He's heading in the same direction we are," Fred argued. "Do you really think we can dodge him all the way back to camp?"

"What's your bright idea then? Go tell him everything?" Karen questioned sarcastically, her hands on her hips.

"We'll just approach him and pretend to be here for fun ourselves. We'll see what he says and go from there," Fred said.

Karen glared at him, but there was no real force behind it.

"Fine. You explain to T.J. that this was your idea," she stressed.

"T.J. will understand," Fred insisted, hoping he was right. After all, being spotted acting furtively would be a lot more suspicious than just going up to the guy and saying hello. This was the safest option open to them, right?

"Hide your laser pistol," Fred said, unbuckling his belt and stowing it, the holster and the weapon in his backpack. Karen did likewise.

"Hey!" Fred shouted down at the figure. The object of his greeting whirled around, saw them and began waving frantically.

Fred and Karen made their way to the far end of the valley and swung around to meet the man. No, not a man, he realized as they drew closer. It was an adolescent, looking about the same age as Fred, though about an inch taller then Fred's six one and even broader across the shoulders. He was beaming at them, seeming far happier to see them than a normal mountaineer would be. And there was something vaguely familiar about his face . . .

It wasn't until he was within half a dozen feet of the teen that Fred recognized him.

"Justin! Justin Stewart, right?"

"That's right," Justin answered warily, in a voice two octaves deeper than the last time Fred had heard him speak. "Who are you?"

"It's me, Fred Kelman."

The cautious expression switched to surprise.

"Fred?" he said disbelievingly.

"So does someone want to introduce me?" Karen asked pointedly from his side.

"Sorry, Kar. Justin, this is Karen Williams. Karen, this is Justin Stewart. He was another one of the kids my old sensei was training. We ran into each other a few times visiting Tommy."

During their brief encounters Justin had always seemed nice enough, though Fred had never found out for sure; it was hard to make pleasant conversation with someone you were jealous of. After he'd shown up Justin had seemed to claim the bulk of Tommy's attention. Fred's mentor had less and less time to spare for him. Justin had even gotten to hang out with Tommy at high school, being skipped ahead two grades because of his exceptional intelligence.

"I'm so glad I found you guys!" Justin said.

"Why? Were you getting lonely roaming around here by yourself?"

"I'm here to join your resistance group. You're members, aren't you?"

"Are you kidding? We're just spending a weekend in the mountains," Karen lied.

"So then you won't mind taking me back to your base camp, where your tent is?" Justin countered archly.

Fred and Karen traded quick glances.

"Why would you think you'd find resistance fighters here?" Karen demanded.

"Because Lieutenant Stone told me in advance that I should bring a good pair of shoes and plenty of water to the rendezvous point. That means he intended for me to do a lot of walking, and I assumed that meant into the mountains, especially since that would be one of the best places to hide. This is the mountain range closest to Angel Grove and it's not prohibitively far from the majority of rebel strikes in California. I guessed he was going to dispatch me to somewhere around here."

"What do you mean "going to"?' Fred inquired. "What are you doing here if Stone didn't send you?"

"He was supposed to tell me where to go today, me and maybe a few other people. Last nigh, though, the Quantrons came for him. I don't know what gave him away, but there was a full squad sent to arrest him. He still had a hand gun on him and he . . . he didn't let them take him alive," Justin finished grimly.

Fred felt like he'd been slugged in the stomach. Lt. Stone had been their best recruiter; hell, he was the one who'd recruited Fred! His death was a tragedy, and a serious loss to the movement.

One more person he knew had fallen in the fight for freedom. One more crime to make the Quantrons, Regent Ecliptor and Dark Specter himself pay for! Their day of reckoning was coming and much sooner than they could guess.

Karen, too, had been recruited by Stone and seemed equally shaken by his death. Like Fred, she took refuge in anger, but directed it at a different target.

"And how do we know that what happened to Lt. Stone wasn't your fault?" she accused Justin.

"What? Why would it be my fault?"

"They were tipped off somehow. Maybe you messed up and drew attention his way."

"If I had don't you think they would have come for me too?" Justin countered.

"Maybe they did. Maybe you rolled over on Stone to save your own skin."

"If I was that much of a coward, why would I still have come here to try to join up?"

"Whoa, Karen! Don't you're going a little too far on no evidence?" Fred asked her pointedly.

"I'm not responsible for what happened to Lt. Stone," Justin declared, his face looking like it had been carved from granite. "Fred might not know me well enough to vouch for me, but T.J. Johnson does, and I'm betting he's part of your group."

"You know T.J.?" Fred asked in surprise. How did Justin know the Blue Ranger, their leader?

Justin gave a short, sharp nod. "I do, and he knows me."

"Excuse us for a minute," Fred said to the other boy, motioning Karen to one side with a jerk of his head. The two of them retreated about twenty feet from the teenager.

"I think we have to bring him in with us."

"I don't trust him!"

"Karen, sometimes I think you don't even trust me!" Fred offered in exasperation.

To his surprise she actually flinched at his words.

"I trust you, Fred," she said softly.

"Then trust me now. Justin was practically Tommy's little brother," he explained, surprised to feel a twinge of jealousy even now at that fact. "Tommy wouldn't have spent so much time with him if Justin wasn't a stand-up guy. And if he knows T.J. too, then doesn't that pretty much clinch it for you?"

She looked away and didn't reply.

"Plus he's a genius, Karen. We might be able to use him to help with Endgame," he assured her, hoping she wouldn't be annoyed by the mention of T.J.'s master plan. So far the exact details were known only to T.J., Cassie, Fred, Tom, and Martin, the officers of their group.

"Okay, let's take him to T.J," she gave in.

"Thank you," Fred said sincerely.

Together they walked back to the new recruit.

"Welcome to the resistance," Fred said, and for only the second time in their lives he and Justin shook hands.

ΩΩΩΩΩ

As they started toward what was presumably the resistance camp, Justin couldn't help marveling at this coincidence. Who would've though he'd encounter Fred Kelman here?

Back when they'd first met he'd been impressed by the other boy's obvious air of confidence and competence. It had been easy to imagine Fred leading the kids of Angel Grove to save their parents from Ivan Ooze's scheme, as Tommy had told him. Justin remembered wistfully how he'd desperately wanted to make friends with Fred, but had been too shy to do so. He'd been burned often when he tried to associate with his peers and hadn't been willing to risk rejection yet again. So he had ended up running into Fred a couple of times with Tommy and that was it. He'd never seen the other teen again, until now.

It was a lucky break that Fred was here today, judging by Karen's reaction. Gritting his teeth and accompanying her all the way back to wherever this camp was would clearly be a serious test of his self-control, but maybe Fred could make the experience less of an ordeal.

"So, Fred, what have you been up to these last few years?" Justin enquired of their trailblazer.

"Up until the Conquest I was just trying to get through Angel Grove High with good enough grades for college. Maybe you could have helped me with that, but by the time I got to high school you and Tommy were both gone."

"We had to move because of the new job my Dad got," Justin explained, bemused to hear an actual note of apology in his voice.

"Where did you move to?"

"A suburb a couple of miles outside of Los Angeles."

"If you live there how did you get recruited by Lieutentant Stone?" Karen snapped.

Argh! He was never going to make it to their destination without killing her!

"I don't live there anymore. I moved back to Angel Grove a little over two months ago."

"Did you come back with your parents?" Fred asked curiously.

"No. My mom died when I was eleven; my dad . . . my dad doesn't approve of what I'm doing."

So Justin had lost his mother too? Fred had never known that about him. Apparently the two of them had more in common than just Tommy Oliver and the martial arts.

"I lost my mom when I was six," Fred confided. "My Dad was pretty scared for me when I told him what I was going to do, but he supported me."

The memory of that support meant a lot to him, given that he hadn't seen his father since joining the resistance. A visit would be too risky, for both of them. Less than fifty miles separated them, but it might as well have been a thousand.

Yet it seemed he was still more fortunate than Justin or Karen. Justin's dad wasn't backing him, and both of Karen's parents had been killed in the Conquest.

Oh, shit! He hadn't even thought about how this conversation would make Karen feel! He threw a quick glance over his shoulder and saw her eyes were turned downward, her lips tightly pressed together. A quick change of subject seemed to be in order.

"Have you been keeping up with your martial arts training?"

Justin laughed at the question.

"You have no idea! Hey, maybe we can get a spar in later?"

"Sounds good," Fred agreed, hiding a smile of his own. He was a second degree black belt now and, aside from T.J. and Cassie, no one in their group could match him. In fact he had pretty much become the camp's de facto close combat instructor. The prospect of sparring against a new, presumably worthy opponent was an exciting one and he relished the thought of demonstrating to Justin exactly how good he was.

"From what I've heard of your attacks, though, you guys usually don't fight hand to hand."

"No, most of us have laser weapons," Fred allowed. "That was why we hit that first Quantron barracks in San Francisco. How have you heard about what we've done?"

"The official news doesn't report any resistance actions; they like to pretend you don't exist, but what you do still gets passed around by word of mouth," Justin explained. "Knowing you're out there and fighting back gives people hope. You've hit what, seven targets in the last year?"

"And the best is yet to come!" the dark-haired teen promised.

"Something big coming?" Justin asked.

"You have no idea," Fred threw his words back at him, grinning to take the sting out of it. "Let's just say you picked the right time to join up."

"When are we going to reach your base?" the seventeen year-old enquired.

"Not until tomorrow morning. We can't make it back to camp before nightfall and trying to navigate these mountains in the dark is just begging for a broken leg."

"Where are we going to sleep then?

"We'll stop at the flattest place we can find before nightfall. First, though, there are a couple of humps for us to get over. Mostly we just have to do a lot of scrambling around between the mountains, but there are two places where you're got to climb a rope to get to the proper elevation. That won't be a problem, right?"

"Hey, bring on the rope," Justin shot back.

When they reached the first steep area Fred put his backpack down and fished out the grappling hook. Whirling it around a couple of times he tossed it toward the top of the sheer wall they were currently facing. This time the hook caught on the hole which had been cut for it in the stone immediately.

Fred turned to smile smugly at Karen, who rewarded him with a slight quirk of her lips.

"About time you learned how to do that on the first try," she chided him, a decidedly teasing tone in her voice.

Making a face at her in reply the teenager tugged on the rope a couple of times to make sure it was secure, then began making his way upward. Rope-climbing had been bad enough in gym class, but doing it while wearing a backpack added a whole new layer of difficulty. Fred was pleased to note he was breathing only slightly harder than normal when he reached the top. Looking back over the edge he motioned for his companions to follow.

Justin came next, and Fred was impressed at the speed and evident ease of their new recruit's ascent. Karen followed, more slowly than either of them, but steadily and without a slip. Fred retrieved the grappling hook and rope, replacing them in his pack before the trio continued on their journey.

The second climb was also made without incident. They'd surmounted the last real obstacle between them and camp; they simply couldn't make it back in the time they had left before nightfall.

"Okay, this looks like a good place to step," Fred decided, looking around the fairly level area.

"Might as well," Karen agreed, dropping to a sitting position and stripping off her pack.

"You're sure we can't make it tonight?" Justin asked in a tone fraught with disappointment.

"Not a chance," Fred answered, shaking his head and following Karen's lead. "You'll just have to wait. In fact you'd better get used to doing a lot of that."

"What do you mean?"

"It isn't constant excitement and danger. We spend a lot of time just training and waiting for the next mission. T.J.'s in charge and he doesn't have us just striking out at random. Every place we hit is carefully scoped out and things are planned in as much detail as possible. We can't afford to mess up, not with how few we are and what's at stake."

T.J. had drilled that truth into all of their heads. No slip-ups, no mistakes, and if you did either, you fixed it as soon as you could.

"I can be patient when I have to be," Justin assured the other boy, dropping his own pack and sleeping bag. "Sound like T.J. is still doing a good job as leader."

"What do you mean, "still"?" Fred asked curiously.

Justin hesitated, then said, "T.J. was kind of the leader of our social group."

Fred glanced toward Karen, who seemed equally interested, but before either of them could say another word Justin spoke again.

"Speaking of training, you ready for that spar, Fred?"

"Here? We're on solid rock!"

"It's flat enough, though, and you were just saying how important training is. We won't do full contact."

"Okay, fine, you're on!"

ΩΩΩΩΩ

Karen watched knowingly as the two males stretched out. They could pretend this was a friendly spar all they wanted, but she knew boys and was very familiar with their testosterone-induced competitiveness. There would be pride on the line in this fight and both of them would be giving it everything they had.

As they finished and faced each other Justin pulled off his royal blue muscle shirt to reveal the genuine muscles underneath. Karen was stunned by how well-built he was; his physique was almost at the bodybuilder level!

Fred, too, seemed taken aback for a second, but drew in a deep breath and mastered himself at once. The sly grin on Justin face suggested he'd been hoping to intimidate or unnerve his opponent, but if so he'd miscalculated. With slow, exaggerated deliberateness, Fred took off his backwards cap and theatrically placed it down on the rocky ledge beside him.

The sarcastic mockery in his gesture was clear and Karen had to bite her lip hard to keep from laughing. That was Fred all over! In the entire time she'd known him she'd never seen him panic or even get seriously rattled, one of the reasons he was practically T.J.'s right hand.

And it was one of the many things she liked about him.

She could be more than friends with Fred. It wouldn't be hard; in fact it would be downright easy, much easier than always pulling away from him when they got too close.

No, the hard part wasn't starting a relationship with him; the hard part would be seeing that relationship end.

Before the Conquest she'd never had anyone close to her die. The sudden shock of losing both of her parents at the same time had nearly broken her. For months she'd alternated between numbness and crushing sorrow. She might have eventually considered suicide, if her slowly growing rage at what had happened hadn't proven stronger than her grief.

Resistance had been the only option for her and she likely would have gotten herself killed in a fruitless, furious attack on some random patrol group of Quantrons if Lt. Stone hadn't offered her a better way. She and Fred had been in the same group and though they hadn't exchanged two words with each other at school somehow, in the struggle to adjust to living as rebels in a cave, they'd become friends.

What stopped her from going further was the simple reason that she didn't think she could deal with another loss. If she and Fred did start dating and something happened to him . . . She couldn't risk putting herself through that again.

Not even for Fred.

The two bowed and slipped smoothly into their stances. Each moved with the fluid, coordinated grace of a true martial artist and this, along with their height gave them an almost disturbing similarity. They circled each other slowly, their eyes weighing and assessing their opponent.

It didn't surprise her in the least when Fred made the first move, lashing out with a front snap kick to the knee which Justin barely blocked. Fred followed up with a punch aimed at the face and an attempted strike to the groin with his knee which had his opponent dancing backward.

Fred pushed his advantage and the two exchanged a series of whip-quick strikes and kicks. Fred had been instructing her in karate for the last year, but the level of expertise displayed here was far beyond her. It was like watching Fred and T.J. spar.

Fred nimbly leapt over a leg sweep and almost landed a pulled kick to his adversary's abs. Next he kicked for his foe's face, but Justin twisted his head out of the way and with his left hand caught Fred's outstretched leg. Then his right fist rocketed forward and stopped a quarter of an inch from Fred's throat. That seemed to signal the end of the match to both of them. Justin released Fred's ankle and taking a few steps back they bowed to each other.

ΩΩΩΩΩ

"Good match," Fred panted as he scooped up his cap. Although inwardly disappointed that he hadn't managed the clear victory he'd been hoping for, he had held his own and confirmed the high skill level of their new recruit. With T.J. so busy running everything and Cassie gone on her long-term scouting assignment, it would be nice to have Justin around to spar against.

"You've been training with T.J., right?" Justin inquired, and Fred nodded.

"I could tell by your technique," the other teen explained, a satisfied expression on his face as he turned to put his shirt back on.

"You know T.J. well enough to recognize his style?"

"Definitely."

How on Earth had Justin ever managed to spend so much time with guys years older than he was? Yeah, he'd been in high school with them, but T.J. had been what then? A junior? A senior? Upperclassmen didn't generally hang out with freshmen. Of course Justin had shared a devotion to karate with Tommy and T.J., but then so had he, and it sure hadn't made any difference in his case! What was so special about Justin?

Fighting back another spark of the old jealousy Fred sat down and pulled his backpack over to him.

"I don't know about you, but that was enough exercise to make me hungry."

"Fred, you're always hungry," Karen cracked, and he happily threw himself into a different kind of sparring.

"Hey, I'm still a growing boy!"

"Yeah, growing in width!" she snorted.

"Are you saying you only love me for my body?" Fred asked plaintively, smirking when Karen began to sputter out a denial.

That match he'd definitely won, even if he hadn't played fair.

Justin had proven his intelligence again in his choice of rations. Though dried beef jerky had little to recommend itself in terms of taste, it had a long shelf life and there was enough of it that Fred would have sworn the total mass constituted an entire cow.

"You came prepared," he noted approvingly as he bit into his own dinner.

"I didn't know how long I'd have to be out here, so I brought as much food and water as I could carry," the brown-haired teen explained. "What's that you guys are eating?"

"MREs, meals packets from the military. We managed to cart a bunch of them in here in backpacks when one of the veterans who joined us said he knew where we could find a supply."

It had been a trip fraught with risk. Most of the nation's military bases had been destroyed in the Conquest, the rest abandoned and off-limits. Going near them was grounds for summary execution, since it was assumed that any visitors were looking for weapons.

Firearms of any kind had been strictly forbidden to humans. Many of those who had previously owned guns did secretly retain them, but dared not use them. After the United States military had been defeated there had still been widespread civilian resistance, quelled only through the massive aerial bombardment of any centers of rebellion by Quantron fighter craft. Since then most of those who had dared to fight back had been exterminated; the only reason their own rebel camp remained was because it was so well hidden.

"So that's how you guys got your food?"

"A lot of it. Regular supply runs in would be too risky, so we've got to have stuff that keeps well. For the most part we only leave camp to go on a raid or to bring new recruits in."

"Want to tell me about some of those raids?" Justin asked eagerly.

"Sure, I can tell you about the ones I went on."

"And then I'll tell you how they really happened," Karen put in.

Childishly sticking his tongue out at her, Fred began relating his stories.

The sun had long since gone down by the time he finished. Justin had been a good audience, listening intently, and Karen had only had to chime in a few times.

Fred shivered a little, and not from the cold. Relating the story of their most recent strike, the one at the Silicon Valley processor center two months ago, made him relive it and it wasn't an experience he enjoyed repeating.

Silicon Valley had been the best evidence yet of the wisdom of T.J.'s precautions. If their advance scouts hadn't tumbled onto the explosives being installed into the facility before they went in, they would have lost everyone.

Subsequent reports from other potential targets had shown that this wasn't a one time thing, but a pattern. All of the places in California that they would be tempted to hit were being secretly fitted with enough explosives to demolish a city block. Each one of the facilities could be rebuilt, but a rebel team lost could not, nor could those innocents living nearby who would be caught in the blast.

Fortunately Cassie had reported that no such measure had yet been put in place at her site, which made sense; the building Cassie was evaluating was not expendable.

Quantron fighter activity had also increased markedly, not in combat situations, but in terms of scouting. They'd probably photographed every inch of California by now, not that it had done them any good.

"Well, that's it for me," Karen admitted with a yawn. "I'm turning in."

Going about a dozen feet away from them, she took a blanket from her backpack, laid it on the ground and folded it over herself, using her balled-up jacket as a pillow.

"Try to keep it down, guys," she called back to them.

"We will," Fred promised.

"It sounds like you've done a lot, Fred," Justin concluded quietly, his gaze locked on the other adolescent.

"I do what I can, but it's the Blue and Pink Rangers who make sure we come out on top," Fred pointed out, though he couldn't help feeling pleased by the acknowledgement.

"Why hasn't the Pink Ranger been on the last couple of strikes then?"

"She's been working on something else," Fred hedged. Cassie's whereabouts were as secret as any other aspect of the Endgame plan, and it was T.J.'s decision as to who was let in on that operation. This was basic security, in case any of them were captured and interrogated on a raid.

Not that any of them intended to be; Stone's response was the rule if at all possible. Fred recognized the necessity of it, but that didn't keep from wanting to vomit at the thought. Going down in battle was one thing; going by your own hand was something else again.

So far nobody had been taken alive, though if the worst happened and one of them was captured they did have a contingency plan for evacuation. Whether it would work or not was another matter entirely, but so far there had been no need to have to find out.

"Isn't it risky not to have her there? I mean, it's the presence of the Rangers that's fueling the resistance, right?"

That question Fred had to give some thought to.

"It does mean a lot, especially to those of us from Angel Grove. And it's given us huge advantages in fighting back! If we lost both of them or even one it would be a catastrophe, but we wouldn't stop fighting."

"We'll never stop."

"You sound like a Power Ranger yourself," Justin commented.

At this Fred couldn't keep from bursting out laughing.

"What's so funny?"

"It's just that one of Tommy's friends, Aisha, told me once that I was in line to be a Power Ranger someday. That was right after the Rangers had beaten Ivan Ooze. I knew she was just trying to be nice, but for years afterwards I couldn't help hoping . . ." Fred shrugged.

"Anyway, thanks for the compliment, Justin."

That was when he realized that his new recruit was staring at him in what he could only describe as slack-jawed amazement.

"Aisha really told you that?"

"Yeah, why?"

ΩΩΩΩΩ

Justin continued to look at Fred without speaking for a moment, his mind racing. He'd never questioned Zordon's acceptance of him as a Ranger; he'd been too amazed and thankful at his dazzling good fortune to question anything about what had happened that day.

Given this new information, though, he had to wonder if Zordon's willingness to make him a Ranger in spite of how much younger he was than the others stemmed from the fact that Zordon had already been considering someone his age for Rangerhood.

Could it be? If he hadn't overheard the truth while hiding under Rocky's bed, would he and Fred be sitting in each other's places now? The implications of that were almost too much to take in.

"Justin, what's wrong?" Fred demanded, his tone concerned and intensely curious.

To his own shock Justin decided to let Fred in on a little of the truth.

"Fred, Aisha was the Yellow Ranger before the Turbo one, just like I was the Blue Ranger before T.J. When she told you that I don't think she was just trying to be nice."

Seeing Fred's wide-eyed reaction to the news brought a smirk to Justin's face.

"You-you were a Power Ranger?" he managed to gasp out.

With a twist of his wrist Justin revealed his morpher. Fred hesitantly reached out to touch it and Justin steeled himself and allowed the other boy to do so.

Fred swallowed twice, his complexion pale. He'd seen T.J.'s morpher and Cassie's. This one looked a little different, but then it probably would if Justin hadn't been an Astro Ranger.

"So you were a Turbo Ranger?" he guessed.

His answer was a nod.

"And so was Aisha," Fred muttered. "Wait a minute, does that mean Tommy was a Ranger?"

"He was the Red Turbo Ranger."

Tommy Oliver had been not just a Power Ranger, but the leader of the Power Rangers!

"That's why he was always spending so much time with you! It's because you were both Rangers!" Fred concluded, the revelation loosening something within him.

"How did it happen? What was it like, being a Ranger? You've got to tell me!"

"Do you remember when Rocky hurt his back, right before that big match?" Justin began, and he related the rise of Maligore.

Fred pressed for more when the tale was done, but the hour had grown late enough that Justin refused.

"It's time to get to sleep."

"You think I can sleep after this? A third Ranger! Do you know what this means?" Fred inquired incredulously.

"I do. And you'd better try to get to sleep anyway; I'm going to want to be up early tomorrow to meet up with T.J."

"It's less than an hour to the camp from here. I'll have you to him before you know it," Fred promised.

"Great! I've been wanting to see him again for a long time," Justin confessed.

"You will soon. And Justin, thank you for telling me all of this. Everyone is going to go nuts when they realize we've added a new Ranger!"

"You're welcome," the former Turbo Ranger replied.

Like Karen, Fred spread a blanket on the ground and used his backpack for a pillow, while Justin wiggled into his brand-new sleeping bag. As he began to drop off he shuddered at how terribly close he might have come to missing out on all he had gained. Ye despite that he still couldn't help feeling a bit of sympathy for the boy stretched out ten feet from him. It was certainly too bad for Fred that he had never become a Ranger!

That was when the idea hit him out of the blue, a thought so startling he almost sat bolt upright. It was an undeniably crazy notion, surely evidence that he wasn't thinking straight, but was it realistically possible?

He forced himself to consider it carefully from every angle, evaluating the feasibility in light of objections, technological and logistical obstacles, and the difficulty involved in securing Fred's participation. It would take a lot of luck and trouble on his part, no question of that, but it could work and he wanted to try it, for more than one reason.

Perhaps it wasn't too late for Fred to become a Ranger.


	2. Chapter 2

Notes: First, my heartfelt thanks to my reviewers! Nenadmon and anothersignalman, I appreciate you pointing out the continuity mistakes I made. Rest assured they have been corrected. My apologies to everyone else; I really should know better than to rely on my memory for continuity purposes!

SacredDust, I'm glad you've enjoyed the story so far. Fans of the Teen Titans or long, extremely well-written romance-adventure-angst Digimon fics should check out SacredDust's profile!

KennFaithDawn has my sincere gratitude for giving me the benefit of the doubt regarding my continuity mistakes, and I'm _extremely_ glad you picked up on to my line about this being a very different universe! Fair warning, I've had to make some major changes to established canon to tell the story I want to tell and all my readers should be aware of that fact.

To cite just one example, the Psycho Rangers' powers come from modified morphers, NOT from a draining of Dark Specter's energy, which explains how the Monarch of Evil is still alive and ruling. Also, since the rest of the galaxy is putting up a much better fight than in the universe you saw, Astronema and Darkonda have each chosen to hold off on their respective treachery until Dark Specter does the hard work of conquering and unifying the known worlds.

Questions, speculations, corrections, etc. in reviews are more than welcome. Now on with the story!

ΩΩΩΩΩ

"Fred? Come on, get up!" Karen's voice insisted from somewhere above him.

Slowly the tired teen opened his eyes, blinking in the bright sunshine. As he'd predicted, he and sleep hadn't had much to do with each other last night. There had been far too many memories to go back over in light of the startling revelation that Tommy Oliver had been a Power Ranger. Little things he'd never given a second thought to connected together and took on new meaning. Viewed with hindsight it all seemed so _obvious_, yet he'd never had the slightest suspicion at the time.

Of course Justin hadn't suspected anything either. He hadn't deduced the Rangers' identities through his superior intelligence, like a real life Tim Drake; he'd stumbled onto the truth through dumb luck!

Knowing this was genuinely painful, since he couldn't help thinking how easily it could have been him instead! A couple of times Tommy had cut their training sessions short when his watch beeped and had hurried off. If Fred had ever followed him, perhaps to ask one last question, he would have seen Tommy teleport away. He would have discovered Tommy's secret and who knew what would have happened next?

In addition to being haunted what might have been, he was sleep-deprived, his back ached abominably from sleeping on solid rock, and he was far from a morning person. Nonetheless he rose without complaint and with a grin gracing his face. They were bringing another Power Ranger into the resistance! How could that be anything but a good, no, a _great_ day?

Karen had already gotten their MRE's ready and Fred, after first putting his hat back on, gratefully dug in. Justin had risen as well and it looked like he was finishing his breakfast.

Halfway through his meal Fred glanced over to see Justin staring at him thoughtfully. Hopefully the other teen wasn't regretting having shared his secret last night. Was he worried Fred would tell everyone? If so then he didn't understand the virtual impossibility of maintaining such a secret in the physically and emotionally close confines of the resistance. Hell, it was a miracle they'd managed to keep the details of the Endgame plan restricted so far!

Once he'd finished eating Fred stuffed his blanket into his pack and also took the opportunity to follow Karen's lead by putting his holster and laser pistol back on, just as she had done. Inwardly he chided himself for his carelessness. He and Karen _should_ have rearmed themselves as soon as they'd admitted to Justin that they were resistance members. He'd never seen a Quantron anywhere near the mountains (it would be cause for a potential evacuation alert if he had), but being prepared meant having your weapon where you could get to it if you needed it.

"Ready?" Justin asked, clearly eager to be on his way. A feeling Fred wholly shared; he couldn't wait to see the look on T.J.'s face when the three of them showed up!

"Let's go. Ladies first?" he offered to Karen.

"No, but I'll take brains before brawn," she riposted, assuming the lead with a small, teasing grin.

As Justin brought up the rear Fred turned back to look at him, only to see the other boy again appeared to be studying him.

"If you're worried that I'll tell anyone what you told me, don't be," he whispered. "You should know, though, that there's no way you're going be able to keep your identity as a Ranger hidden for long."

"I'm not worried," he assured Fred. "I plan to let everyone know who I am soon."

"Good. Adding another Ranger is really going to boost morale," Fred enthused.

"How big is your group?"

"We've got seventy-two people right now, seventy-three with you."

"How are you set for weapons?"

"Everyone's got a laser pistol and we've picked up a dozen of the new laser rifles. They don't just disable a Quantron when they hit one, they practically vaporize it!"

"Hey, are you two coming or not?" Karen called. She had stopped some distance ahead of them, her hands on her hips, her head cocked to one side, and her long hair gleaming like spun gold in the early morning light. Irrelevantly he wondered how any woman could look that good this early in the morning without first spending half an hour primping in front of a mirror.

"Coming, ma'am!" Fred said. He was her superior in the resistance, but between the two of them rank had no real meaning outside of combat situations. Picking up his pace turned his head to share a grin with Justin, only to find the Ranger scowling.

Uh oh.

ΩΩΩΩΩ

Karen couldn't help recognizing the irony of the situation as she walked. Today Fred, who was usually a pain in the ass to get up, had awoken with hardly a struggle and with unusual cheer. She, on the other hand, an early riser by nature, had fought her way free from sleep in a decidedly sour mood.

Seeing Fred talking happily to Justin merely served to further blighten her day.

It actually made perfect sense for Fred to try to get to know their new recruit better, to answer his questions and make him feel comfortable, thus easing his transition into their group. That was all part of being a good leader, and Fred had displayed a natural affinity for leadership from the age of twelve. He had proven his talent for it again on their first mission together, when he'd assumed command of the group after Mark Wheeler got his neck snapped. Fred was the one who'd told the rest of them to retreat from the barracks, covering them as they did so. He'd gotten the remainder of the group out alive, and it was his quick, correct decision-making and coolness under fire in the wake of their squad leader's death which had marked him for advancement in T.J's eyes.

So Fred was doing the right thing, yet the sight of him being friendly with their new recruit still set her teeth on edge because, T.J's old friend or not, she neither liked nor trusted Justin Stewart.

Admittedly he'd gotten off on the wrong foot with her from the beginning and she was reluctantly willing to concede that she'd taken out some of her grief over Lieutenant Stone's death on him.

None of which changed the fact that he was a liar. She'd heard the ring of insincerity in his voice and had taken note of his unconvincing answers to some of their questions. There were clearly things he was hiding from them and that was more than enough reason to mistrust him. In fact it should have excluded him from selection altogether. Being in the resistance meant taking responsibility for the lives of those around you, and being willing to put your life in their hands. There was no room for deception in such a relationship.

Then there was his personality to take into account. Fred could be cockily self-confident at times and privately she considered that part of his charm, but Justin went well beyond Fred's level. Smugness practically dripped off him, most noticeably right before the sparring match yesterday. He possessed an arrogance which was all too familiar to her. She'd seen the same sense of self-regarding entitlement every day in her friends from high school, in the jocks she'd dated and in her fellow cheerleaders. It was a common characteristic of the cool kids, the ones with the looks, the clothes, the cars, the money, and the popularity. It was the attitude of those who considered themselves the chosen, the elite.

It was something she'd had herself in spades, before the Conquest. Before she'd lost everything she valued and seen how worthless much of what she'd held to be important was. Before she'd grown the hell up!

Now the prospect of sharing space with someone like-well, someone like she used to be made her feel nauseous. And if Fred really did make friends with Justin it would be even worse! How often in the future would she go to hang out with Fred and find Justin already there? Would Fred grow more interested in sparring against an equal than in training her in the martial arts? Would he be assigned to their team for future missions?

Karen had nothing but the highest respect and regard for T.J. Johnson. He deserved all the happiness he could find, especially now that he and Cassie were temporarily separated (Maybe when Cassie got back Karen could ask her how _she_ dealt with the fear that the man she was dating could be lost to her at any time). In spite of her affection for her leader, however, she ardently hoped Justin would choose to inflict himself on T.J. on a regular basis and leave _her_ friend alone.

ΩΩΩΩΩ

The home stretch back to camp proved more difficult than Fred had anticipated. Not physically, but socially. Justin and Karen maintained a tense silence for much of the way, neither of them responding to his conversational openers with more than a word or two.

He had the uncomfortable feeling of being in the middle and didn't like the sensation one bit. It usually took Karen a while to warm up to people and the exceptionally rough start she and Justin had yesterday obviously wouldn't speed that process along any. Justin, for his part, seemed no more fond of Karen than she was of him. A natural reaction, but also a mistake; there was a lot more to Karen Williams than just her prickly demeanor.

He comforted himself with the thought that these bad feelings were temporary. Finding out Justin was a Ranger would help bring Karen around and once she lowered her barriers Justin would hopefully respond in kind. In fact Fred had kind of verbally nudged Justin to share his history with Karen as they walked, but the other boy had steadfastly ignored the hint. His decision irritated Fred, but the seventeen year-old couldn't wholly blame Justin for presumably wanting to get settled in and get to know everyone before revealing his status as a Ranger.

Finally they began starting down the slope into the valley. Now might be a good time to share a word of warning.

He opened his mouth to do so and ahead of them Karen vanished. A glance back showed Justin had stopped in his tracks, his expression wary.

"Keep walking," Fred instructed him and passed through the bubble of the cloak himself.

The seemingly empty valley no longer appeared so; ahead of him loomed the massive bulk of the Astro Megaship. The grounded vehicle filled almost all of the available space between the two gray rock walls and towered to over six stories in height. As always the high-tech haven seemed anomalous sitting in this narrow gash between mountains; it looked like it should be in orbit or berthed at some Star Wars-type futuristic space port.

Justin audibly drew in his breath behind him.

"So that's how you've stayed hidden for all this time!"

"You got it. The cloaking field covers us visually and shields us from all known sensors. Two months ago some Quantron fighters were flying low overhead, scouting this mountain range we think, and they never even had a clue we were here."

Karen hadn't waited for them and was steadily making her way toward the ship. Fred jogged to catch up, careful to step over the cables snaking across the ground from the ship to the deep cave its laser cannons had blasted into the east side of the valley.

"We've got way too many people for everyone to have quarters in the ship," he explained to Justin. "A lot of us have to sleep in the cave, but it's rigged up with power, heat, and light. It's not that bad."

"Do you sleep there?" Justin asked.

"No, I've got quarters on the ship. So does Karen. You'll probably be sleeping there though," he added mischievously.

"What?" the other teen demanded, his tone far from pleased.

Enjoying this little payback for Justin's refusal to enlighten Karen Fred went on innocently.

"The ship is filled, Justin. All new recruits are assigned to the cave."

"We'll see about that," the blue-clad adolescent growled.

In truth Fred thought it pretty likely T.J. would make an exception in Justin's case and find some way to squeeze him aboard. But Justin didn't have to know that, not yet.

They entered the ship just as a fit young man of medium height with straight, dark hair cut short and a burn scar across his right cheek was leaving it. Hector Santos' brown eyes played across the three of them before he addressed Fred.

"Welcome back, sir. Still on for our teaching session this afternoon?"

"No problem," he assured his pupil. Hector was his best student and in Fred's opinion was right on the edge of being a brown belt, but he'd been a soldier during the Conquest and the experience had left its mark on him.

He was taciturn almost to the point of being mute; what had just passed between them was an excessive number of words for Hector. He almost never socialized and was one of the few who hadn't so much as set foot in the quarters of Dr. Evans, their token psychiatrist and one of the busiest men in the resistance. Fred had tried a few times to get Hector to open up, but without success. Emotionally Hector was locked up tighter than a drum, though professionally he did all that was required of him and more.

With a polite nod to Karen and Justin Hector brushed past them and headed in the direction of the cave.

"DECA, where's T.J.?" Fred asked, staring up at the nearest camera.

"T.J. is on the bridge," the computer answered at once.

"Thanks, DECA. Let him know we're coming up with a new recruit."

"Affirmative."

"What do you teach?" Justin asked as they traversed the corridors toward the bridge.

"Martial arts, naturally. We mostly shoot our enemies, but it's good to be able to engage in close combat if we have to, plus the discipline and focus is really helpful. We train on the Simu Deck on Megadeck Five, but you've got to schedule weeks in advance; it's the most popular place on the ship. Hey, maybe you could do some teaching too?"

"Maybe."

They passed Ken, Nathan, and a few more people with smiles and nods. Seeing the new recruit with them, they understood that Karen and Fred needed to report to T.J.

Fred noticed that while Justin displayed the usual reaction of looking around at everything as they walked, the sense of awestruck wonder most recruits displayed on their first time inside the ship was absent in him.

Well, that figured. Having been a Turbo Ranger he was probably pretty used to spaceships and all other manner of super-tech. This wasn't the miracle to him that it was to the rest of them.

They entered the bridge with Fred in the lead, Justin behind him and Karen bringing up the rear.

T.J. Johnson turned from the console nearest the door toward them, dressed in his usual blue jeans and red T-shirt.

His gaze immediately locked on Justin, his mouth falling open slightly.

"We were only able to bring in one new recruit," Fred said as he and Karen stepped off to either side. "But I think he's a good one."

"Justin?" T.J. asked in a hoarse voice, looking as though he'd seen a ghost.

"Justin!" he declared before sprinting up and literally bear-hugging their newest recruit.

That was enough of a shock in itself, but what happened next was even more unexpected.

"Get off me!" Justin roared, forcibly breaking T.J.'s fierce embrace. Off balance their leader stumbled back a step as Justin assumed a fighting stance, his face hard and his eyes blazing.

For one frozen instant no one moved. Then with a visible effort Justin relaxed and let his arms fall to his sides and his gaze drop to the floor, the angry tension falling away from him as suddenly as it had appeared.

"Sorry, T.J.," he muttered. "I don't like feeling trapped."

He and Karen exchanged glances, his one of confusion and hers one of vindication, but their leader nodded understandingly, looking a little embarrassed himself. Then he actually laughed!

"Damn, you've gotten strong! And big! You're as tall as I am now!" he marveled, his tone one of mingled pride and disbelief.

"I've grown a lot since I saved you guys from Lionizer," Justin said, raising his head.

T.J. winced, almost imperceptibly, but Fred had seen that reaction before, whenever anyone alluded in the slightest way to the fallen Astro Rangers. And so, out of respect and concern for T.J., no one did.

They'd all suffered losses from the Conquest, but it could be argued that T.J. and Cassie had lost the most. Their friends, their teammates, had died. They'd been in hiding for these last two years, cut off from everyone but fellow resistance members. And each day they had to confront and live with the terrible, global consequences of their failure to defeat the Psycho Rangers.

It was a burden Fred doubted he could have borne at all, much less half as well as T.J. had. Every day their leader did all he could to rectify the consequences of his failure, to follow his own oft-repeated rule of fixing your mistakes as soon as you could.

Maybe it was the Conquest which had led him to come up with that.

"Yeah, you have," T.J. said in answer to Justin. "It's so good to see you again! Cassie's gonna flip when she finds out you're here! She and I were afraid that . . ." T.J. paused, clearly unwilling to complete the thought.

"That I'd died in the Conquest? I'm a lot tougher to kill than that."

"I know you are, Justin."

"Wait, what's "Lionizer"? And how did Justin save you?" Karen asked, brows furrowed. T.J. and Justin both turned to her and it was clear that they'd forgotten anyone else was even in the room.

"Karen, Fred, Justin is the Blue Turbo Ranger. The Lionizer is a monster Astronema sicced on us and Justin came to our rescue after it had captured us."

"_You're_ a Power Ranger?" Karen asked in a tone of outraged disbelief. Justin's only response was to smirk at her.

Fred had to work to keep from wincing himself. Gloating definitely wasn't the way to get on Karen's good side. She couldn't stand having her nose rubbed in her mistakes or defeats.

"Not only is he a Ranger, but for a long time he was the senior Ranger on our team," T.J. went on. "So how have you been doing? Who recruited you?"

There was no putting the bad news off any longer.

"Lt. Stone approached him, but before he could give Justin the coordinates of the rendezvous something tipped off the tin heads. A squad of Quantrons came for him and

he didn't let them capture him," Fred explained, not needing or wanting to go into any further details; T.J. understood what he meant.

T.J's face grew grim. "We never contacted him except in person and Stone wouldn't have left anything written down. We should still be secure, at least for now. Fred, after we're done here break the news to everyone and set up a memorial service at seven tonight, for those who want to attend."

"Will do," Fred agreed. It was standard practice to hold a wake for those lost during a mission. Lt. Stone hadn't operated in the field, but his task had been every bit as important as any member's contribution, maybe more important. It was because of him that Fred, Karen, Justin and a couple of dozen others were here in the first place. He would be missed and mourned as much as any of the others they'd lost.

Then T.J. turned back to his old teammate.

"Justin, how did you find us if Lt. Stone didn't tell you where to go?"

"From what he said I thought he'd be sending me into the mountains. This is the nearest mountain range to Angel Grove and I figured you'd want to be close to the city, so I packed up and headed out here to try to find you. Fortunately Fred and Karen found me, otherwise I never would have located you. I didn't know this ship even _had_ a cloaking device."

"It didn't. After . . . after the last fight with the Psycho Rangers Cassie, Alpha Six and I put down here. I got on the comm and sent out an emergency call to all friendly planets, but no one could come and help, not against the forces Dark Specter had here. No one would help!" T.J. hissed. "On Aquitar, though, the guy who answered my message put me in touch with a human on the planet, Billy Cranston, the original Blue Ranger."

"So you're in contact with Billy?" Justin demanded.

"I wish we still were! But interstellar communications are too easy to trace. Billy warned us about that. He said our first priority had to be staying alive, that it was the only way we could accomplish anything. I told him we couldn't hope to even make orbit without being shot down and he sent us the technical schematics of a cloaking device he'd been working on. We had most of the parts on hand, but not all of them. We were able to jury-rig it anyway using parts from Alpha Six."

This was the first Fred had heard of any of this. T.J. understandably wasn't very forthcoming about the time immediately preceding and following the Conquest. Now, though, Fred thought he understood why T.J. kept the nonfunctional robot in a place of honor in his quarters.

"I wouldn't have been able to do it, but Alpha wanted us to; he said it was the best way he could help."

"But once you had it working why didn't you leave?" Justin asked.

"We couldn't leave! We couldn't flee Earth, couldn't abandon everyone here to suffer under the UAE's boot! Billy invited us to Aquitar, hell, he practically begged us, but we couldn't go. We had to stay and try to fix things."

"Billy said he was going to rally the free planets against the UAE. I told him great, do what you can from your end; we'll do what we can here."

"But what can you do? T.J. there are millions of Quantrons here and more all the time!"

"I know. In fact I'm counting on that," T.J. admitted, with an almost feral grin.

Justin glanced from T.J. to Fred, who was fighting to keep his own expression blank. Karen simply looked annoyed.

"Fred told me you had something in the works, but he wouldn't give me any details."

"Join the club," Karen muttered sotto voce. She'd accepted the limited circulation of Endgame, but that didn't mean she was happy about it.

"He wasn't supposed to," T.J. said gently. "The Endgame plan is what we've been working toward all this time, but it's no good if they see it coming. I'd like your help with it, Justin, but you can't tell anyone who doesn't already know, and you have to be certain you can kill yourself rather than be captured. Can you do that?"

"I know what's at stake, T.J.," Justin asserted firmly. "I'll do whatever I have to."

"I knew I could count on you," T.J. said softly. "Karen, you're excused. Fred, show Justin to Cassie's quarters so he can drop off his stuff and then bring him back to the bridge. He can stay in Cassie's room until she gets back."

"T.J., could Karen stay?" Justin asked unexpectedly. "She and Fred brought me in. They can be trusted with this, can't they?"

"I trust everyone in the resistance," T.J. explained. "I'm keeping the number of people who know small to guard against anyone leaking it accidentally or in interrogation. Right now only the officers know."

"Couldn't you make an exception for Karen? You're making one for me," Justin pointed out.

Again T.J. laughed. This was the happiest Fred had seen him in . . . well, ever!

"Oh, Justin, I've missed you," he admitted. "Karen, is that what you want? Are you up for the responsibility?"

"Yes!" she said, standing at attention.

"All right then. Drop off your backpacks, get back here, and I'll tell you how we're going to carve the heart out of the United Alliance of Evil's empire."


	3. Chapter 3

_Notes: I've been given a better idea for the origin of the Psycho Morphers. In keeping with that idea it is in fact the Green Psycho Ranger in the first chapter instead of a Black one. That said, on with the story_!

ΩΩΩΩΩ

No conversation passed between the boys on their way to Cassie's quarters. As Justin carelessly slung his backpack off onto the bed, Fred found himself studying the Ranger for a change.

The other teen caught his eye and held his gaze.

"What?" Justin asked with a touch of irritated belligerence.

"I'm just trying to figure you out," Fred admitted, not backing down an inch. "First you practically punch T.J. when he hugs you and the next thing I know you're granting one of Karen's wishes. Are you bipolar or something and you forgot to tell me?"

Justin let out a deep sigh. "Why don't we talk about it after T.J. fills me in on the Endgame plan?"

"If you want," Fred assented with a shrug. "I'll probably be in the cave then, breaking the news to everyone about Lt. Stone. Come and find me when you get a chance."

"You're not going to stay until T.J's finished?" Justin questioned quickly.

"No, I already know the plan. Usually the ones bringing in the new recruits give them the tour, but I figured T.J. would probably wanna handle that personally in your case."

"Could you stay anyway?"

"Sure, I guess so, but why?"

"There's something I need to address with just you, Karen and T.J. for now. Trust me, it's important."

Now his curiosity was piqued, and that was a force Fred had never been very successful at resisting. Besides, he wasn't sorry for an excuse to put off the unpleasant task of spreading the word of Stone's death for at least a little while.

"Okay. Do you want to talk about this first?"

"No," Justin answered with a decisive shake of his head. "It's better that I hear about this Endgame plan beforehand. Is it really as good as T.J. says?"

"Come on and find out," Fred tossed over his shoulder as he went through the door. Justin followed him out into the hallway and they headed back toward the bridge. They met up with Karen on the way.

She, too, was studying Justin, her expression one of puzzled frustration. If he had to guess Fred would have said she trying to reconcile the news that he'd been a Ranger and the favor he had just done for her with her initial opinion of him, and having trouble doing so.

Well, good! The idea of Karen and Justin continuing to be at odds with each other didn't sit well with him. It was important to be able to get along with any member of the resistance so that on missions everyone could work together smoothly and without personality clashes. Since Justin was a Ranger, it was especially important to Fred that the members of his regular squad be able to operate with their second Blue without friction. Otherwise they risked being excluded from missions involving their third Ranger, and THAT wasn't going to happen!

Besides, he liked Justin and he wanted the three of them to be able to spend time together without any tension.

T.J. was waiting in his place behind the second console and once they were inside he turned to the camera up on the wall.

"DECA, seal the bridge door until I give the command to unseal it."

"Affirmative," DECA replied.

"Now bring up the outside video we have of the Endgame target," he ordered, turning towards the front of the room.

An image of an industrial-looking three-story structure filled the viewscreen. A trio of smokestacks belched gray clouds into the sky which undoubtedly explained the haze in the air. The picture slowly traversed the at least half-mile length of the edifice, revealing numerous loading bays at each end. Continuing to move farther to the left the recording device showed a comparatively tiny neighboring building all but hidden behind the bulk of numerous transport spacecraft sitting on raised metallic landing circles, the surface of which had been charred black by thruster emissions.

Justin visibly started when the picture appeared while Karen raised her eyebrows in interest.

"This is Earth's Quantron factory," T.J. announced. "It's located at Longhua, Shenzen, in China. It runs twenty-fours a day, with a staff of five thousand people per shift and two hundred Quantrons. Since opening over a year and a half ago it's turned out eight million new Quantrons. Most of them are taken straight to the neighboring spaceport and shipped off-planet, but whenever they need to replace Quantrons here on Earth the new ones come from the factory. It's also used as a major repair center for damaged Quantrons, and not just ones damaged on Earth. The ships that land are often full of Quantrons from other worlds in need of repair. This is the UAE's most important site on this planet, even more important to them in the long run than Ecliptor's palace in D.C. or the fighter craft manufacturing facilities in Detroit."

"And your plan is to blow it up?" Justin asked with poorly concealed scorn.

"No," T.J. said with a fierce grin, "but after we've gone in I want them to _think_ that was what we were trying to do."

"Bring up the floor plan, DECA."

A crudely drawn sketch of the interior layout appeared on the screen. Justin immediately circled around both free-standing consoles, coming to a halt directly in front of the first console, his gaze locked on the viewscreen.

"The ground floor is two stories high, but there and there you can see the stairs and the elevators to the top floor. When we go in we'll be mainly attacking the assembly lines, and a group of us will hit the space port at the same time, but all of that's just a diversion. The real target is here," he pointed, and DECA highlighted a room at the eastern corner of the building.

Unfortunately Justin's head and shoulders were now blocking most of the picture. With only a small sigh of exasperation Karen went forward and stopped just beyond the first console on Justin's right, while Fred did the same on the Turbo Ranger's left.

T.J. didn't move. He didn't need to see the screen. He had studied the information Cassie had sent back thoroughly and knew everything by heart.

"This is the complex's main computer control room. It handles all of the factory's automated functions, including the final scan of all software for newly built and repaired Qunatrons

Video appeared of rows of metal tables, each with a Quantron lying there prone and a pencil-thin metal rod coming down from above, over and in some cases in the robots. The feed focused in on one in particular, showing a probe jack at the end of the rod which had been inserted itself into a data port in the metal man's forehead. After a few seconds the probe withdrew and the raised triangular piece of metal at the top of the Quantron's head slid down an inch to completely cover the port. Then the Quantron sat up, got off the table, and marched away.

"Cassie and I talked for weeks after . . . after we got here, trying to come up with a plan."

T.J. was talking so quietly now everyone else in the room had to strain to hear. All eyes had turned to him rather than the viewscreen.

"And I remembered what Billy had told me just before he said good-bye, that if anyone could do something about this it was a Blue Ranger. The Blue Rangers are all about knowledge, and I knew we needed to know more about our enemy. We slipped into Angel Grove and got in touch with people we trusted to join us and to recruit for us. We formed the resistance, and our strikes were meant to hurt the occupiers and show the people we were fighting back. More than that, though, they were about gathering information! After our first strike, to get the laser weapons, I brought back three non-functional Quantrons for DECA to analyze. The next time I brought back a Quantron head, perfectly intact. Cassie tapped into the computer at the San Francisco barracks before we destroyed it and pulled what information she could. I returned with whole computers from the Los Angeles and Silicon Valley missions. DECA's been through everything and now we know exactly how the Quantrons work. We know the computer language the UAE uses. We know the standard layout of their computer systems. And under my direction DECA has written a virus."

Now the volume of T.J.'s voice increased, the words coming faster.

"The factory mainframe is a closed system, so we can't introduce the virus through any outside connections. We need to go there and physically insert the contaminated drive into the computer."

"So you're going to scramble their circuits?" Karen asked eagerly.

T.J. shook his head emphatically.

"No. There will be no visible effect at all. But with every scan from then on the factory computer is going to insert a copy of our Quantron-specific virus into the robot. Every Quantron built, every Quantron repaired there, is going to get infected. And on a date a little over a year from now, each virus is going to become active and those Quantrons are going to get a whole new set of directives."

Fred was grinning broadly now, while Justin and Karen attention remained riveted on T.J.

"What are they going to do?" Justin almost whispered.

"The ones off Earth are going to be instructed to destroy whatever facilities they're stationed in, whether they're bases, spaceships or palaces, preferably by sabotaging the reactor, and to kill anyone who tries to stop them. The ones on Earth will become incapable of harming a human and will obey any orders given to them by a human."

"While we're waiting for the year to be up we're going to be hitting sites specifically to destroy the maximum number of uninfected Quantrons, so that they get replaced with brand-new Quantrons. Once the virus activates we'll take and hold the factory. The new Quantrons produced from then on won't be Earth's oppressors; they'll be its soldiers!"

Finally T.J. seemed to settle down, his expression sobering. "We'll need them all if the UAE returns, but I don't think they'll be able to. With how many Quantrons they're producing and how many are coming back damaged, I think Dark Specter is fighting a war. How do you think that war is going to turn out for him when all the Quantrons made and repaired on Earth for a year betray him?" T.J. asked rhetorically. "I'm betting that'll be 'Game over" for the UAE!"

"It's brilliant!" Karen enthused, her face alight.

"Cassie's inside that factory, isn't she?" Justin asked point-blank.

"Yes. We needed every inch of that place scouted out first, and Cassie has family back in China. After she smuggled herself there they were able to put her up and help get her a job in the factory under an assumed name. She's been working at Quantron central for a month and a half now and she should be done in another week. Our hope was that she could find a way to gain access to the computer room so we wouldn't need to stage an attack, but there's just no way to do it through stealth; we have to insert the virus under cover of an assault. DECA thinks it has a shot of remaining undetected even if they look, but the last thing we want is to give them a reason to start looking."

"Who's going on the attack?" Karen asked eagerly.

"Whoever's willing to. The factory is huge, and we've got to make them think that we really are trying to take it down. The casualties are going to be bad, both for our side and maybe even among some of the workers, but this is the only way! I'll tell everyone before we go what the danger level is; anyone who wants to can stay behind."

"Not a chance!" Karen insisted.

"She's right. Not many people are going to stay behind," Fred agreed.

"Maybe not, but they get a choice."

"How are you going to get everyone there?" Justin asked. "You can't teleport that far without being detected and tracked."

"No, we can't. That's why when Cassie's finished we're taking the Megaship on a long, slow flight over the ocean, under the cloak. Cassie's already found a new location for us and DECA is going to calculate a route that won't have us running into anything."

"Because you can't see out while the cloak is on," Justin stated rather than asked and T.J. nodded.

"That's right. We can't communicate through it either, especially since we use our communications array to generate the cloaking field. That's why the missions are always run on such a strict timetable. DECA has a set time to teleport us all back for each attack."

"Could I see the schematic for the cloaking shield?" Justin asked.

"DECA, bring it up," T.J. said. "You think you can improve on it?" he asked teasingly.

"I just want to understand it," Justin said, turning back toward the viewscreen.

What was being shown now was little more than gibberish to Fred, but Justin was totally absorbed by it, drinking it in. He muttered something which sounded to Fred like "So fucking brilliant".

"And how does it interlink with the ship?" Justin asked and DECA showed the connections from the communications console on the bridge to the modified array.

"You built and installed this yourself?" Justin inquired of T.J.

"Cassie helped," their leader qualified modestly.

"You really are a good Blue Ranger, T.J. And with this Endgame plan in place it looks like I got here just in time."

He took a few steps toward Fred and, assuming Justin wanted to get by and go back to T.J., the seventeen year-old slid to the side, moving further toward the front of the bridge.

Instead and without warning Justin slammed his clenched right fist directly into Fred's solar plexus. The startled teenager doubled over, his arms hugging his midsection. Snatching the laser pistol from Fred's holster Justin spun around and shot Karen in the head.

Before the blond girl's body had even finished crumpling to the floor the muzzle of the weapon was already swinging toward T.J. He was saved not by conscious thought, but by the battle-instincts he'd honed and developed over his time as a Ranger and a rebel. He legs folded under him and he dropped down behind the cover of his console.

Almost on autopilot his fingers fumbled for his morpher. He never carried a sidearm, relying on his Ranger powers and abilities whenever he needed to go into battle. Once he was morphed the laser pistol would be no threat to him . . . but then Justin had a morpher too. The sickening stench of burned flesh was quickly filling the air of the small room, making T.J. gag while his mind struggled to comprehend how this tragic, impossible insanity could be happening.

Sitting facing the door he transformed into the Blue Astro Ranger. At almost the same time another costumed blue figure appeared in his peripheral vision, at the communications console. T.J. surged to his feet, but he was already too late.

"Warning! Cloaking shield deactivated!" DECA announced, the computer's voice almost being drowned out by the sound of the communications control blowing when Justin put two shots into it.

"No!" T.J. shouted and his old Ranger comrade whirled to face him. Yet Justin wasn't dressed in the Blue Turbo Ranger uniform as T.J. had anticipated.

Instead the seventeen year-old wore the ornate armor of the Blue Psycho Ranger.

And just like that T.J. was back in Angel Grove's town square, watching his teammates, his friends, falling and dying before his eyes. Again he saw Andros impaled on Psycho Red's sword, Ashley shot in the back, and Carlos's skull crushed. He saw Zhane coming down like an avenging angel to save him before blasting Cassie's attacker away, only for both Psycho Rangers to turn on the Silver Ranger in retaliation. Psycho Pink had seized him from behind and Psycho Blue had planted that axe of his in the alien's chest.

And all this time the Psycho Ranger who'd tried to kill him, who had killed Zhane, had been _Justin_?

The flood of painful memories and emotions overwhelmed T.J., virtually paralyzing the hero. He could only watch in a daze as Psycho Blue effortlessly crushed Fred's pistol in one gloved hand before dropping the twisted mass of metal to the deck.

"Psycho Axe!" the dark Ranger called in that gravelly, electronic tone which had haunted T.J.'s nightmares for the last two years, and the weapon appeared in his now free right hand.

The sight of the vicious instrument of bloodletting which had taken Zhane's life was enough to finally snap T.J. out of his horrified trance.

"Astro Axe!" he spat out, summoning his own weapon into being.

"Finally!" the Psycho Ranger breathed as they eyed one another. "I've had to wait way too long for this! And this time there's no Silver Ranger around to save your ass, T.J.," Psycho Blue taunted. He charged forward and T.J. stopped remembering, stopped mourning, stopped doing anything but trying to stay alive.

Caught between the console and the wall he had little room to maneuver and was barely able to block the first blow, a downward chop of the axe which he caught on his own blade. He took a side kick to the stomach and his enemy brought the axe around to slash his unprotected right. He staggered back, his morph holding, but the Blue Psycho Ranger held his weapon out and shouted "Psycho Spin!"

He began twirling at an incredible speed, flames shooting up from his boots and enveloping him. The Psycho Axe came at T.J. in a whirlwind attack which struck him half a dozen times, sending him sprawling to the deck. Psycho Blue brandished the axe downward and released a spinning energy blade cut a line of fire across his torso, leaving a smoking tear in his suit.

"Not even a challenge," the Psycho Ranger sneered disdainfully, raising his axe for the finishing blow when a laser bolt struck him in the right arm. The next hit his helmet, but the gun simply didn't have anywhere near enough power to breach Psycho Ranger armor.

Fred must have realized that as well, since the third bolt splashed across the visor. Again it didn't penetrate, but by covering the visor it blinded T.J.'s attacker for a vital second, giving the rebel leader time to bring his own axe up in a powerful blow to the Psycho Ranger's chest.

Sparks flew and his foe fell back a step from the impact, fighting for balance and holding onto his weapon with only his right hand.

Rising up with a growl T.J. swung with both hands and all of his might to knock the Psycho Axe out of its wielder's grasp. It dropped between the two consoles and T.J. immediately reversed his weapon and struck at the head, then across the chest, his pure rage overwhelming everything else as he drove his enemy back with axe blow after axe blow. He forgot what Justin had meant to him, the friendship they'd shared. The only thing he felt was an irresistible need to destroy the murderer of his friends, to smite this embodiment of United Alliance of Evil.

The Blue Psycho Ranger fell against the still sparking console and T.J. put all the force of his fury behind a downward chop meant to finally split his adversary's helmet and the skull beneath it.

Instead the Blue Psycho Ranger reached up and caught the haft of the weapon in his right hand, stopping it dead. Then he thrust the fingers of his left hand through the tear in T.J.'s costume, and-

The deck rose up and slammed hard into T.J.'s back. He tried to scream, to give voice to the terrible, burning agony he was experiencing, but he couldn't find the breath. In his anguish he wasn't even aware of having relinquished his hold on the Astro Axe and he never saw the blade descending toward his own neck.

ΩΩΩΩΩ

"T.J.!" Fred screamed. He'd used the gun he taken from . . . from Karen to distract the murdering traitor and give T.J. the advantage, but now the Blue Astro Ranger had collapsed. Fred opened fire again, but even hitting the visor no longer seemed to have any effect. T.J.'s own axe was brought down on him once, twice, three times.

The third time, when it rose up again, blood was dripping freely from the blade. Only then did the Blue Psycho Ranger finally turn toward his enraged, impotent attacker.

"You're gonna have to do better than that, Fred," the killer chided.

He would do better.

Gathering his legs under him Fred threw himself over the console he was braced against, falling between the two free-standing consoles, and landing only a few feet from the fallen battle axe.

Now on his hands and knees he seized the handle of the weapon, only for a boot to slam down on its head.

How could have gotten around the console so quickly without jumping it? Fred was given no time to ponder the question. The Psycho Ranger immediately dropped down to one knee. He no longer held the Astro Axe, but his right hand glowed with blue energy as he traced a string of light from one of Fred's wrists to the other, a line which solidified into manacles linked by a metal chain. Psycho Blue grabbed the chain in one hand and the axe with another, the weapon disappearing almost as soon as he touched it. Then Fred was enfolded by white light and felt the familiar sensation of rapidly ascending into the air.

He'd once jokingly told Karen that teleportation was what it must be like to go to Heaven, the feeling of flying upward with white light all around you.

Now he knew better. Now Fred Kelman knew he was going to Hell.

ΩΩΩΩΩ

_Flame if you must, but first I urge you to reread Chapters 1 and 2 knowing what you do now. There are subtle hints given regarding Justin's true allegiance_.


	4. Chapter 4

They arrived in a vast chamber, its size and featurelessness momentarily reminding Fred of the Angel Grove High gym. The dimensions here were several times greater, however, and the room seemed filled with row after row of standing, silent Quantrons.

Fred had time to register this much before the Blue Psycho Ranger used the chain of his cuffs to virtually fling him into the first row of tin men, two of which caught him by the arms.

"You two take the prisoner to the operating table in the lab and secure him there," the evil Ranger ordered. Reaching out he touched the manacles again and they dissolved in a flare of blue light. "Don't injure him any more than necessary and wait with him until I return."

"Yes, my lord," the two Quantrons responded in unison. They stepped forward, frog marching Fred between them.

His captors maneuvered him toward a metal door in the wall, which opened at their approach. Behind them Psycho Blue was addressing the other Quantrons.

"I have the location of the camp. It consists of a cave carved into a mountain and the Megaship. Kill every human you find there, but don't damage the ship.

Quantrons possessed greater than human strength, yet these two still almost lost their grip on Fred when the teenager abruptly tried to throw himself backwards. He screamed obscenities at the _thing_, the monster, but the only reaction he received was a calm ordering of two more Quantrons out of line, to assist those already holding him.

Against all four of them Fred couldn't hope to break free, yet he never stopped trying as they dragged him out of the room and down a corridor of polished metal, through three junctions and at last into a room with two workbenches laden with strange technological devices and pieces thereof.

At the far end of the room was a table almost identical to the ones that finished and repaired Quantrons used, except this one was fitted out with restraining clamps for the hands and feet. The robots wrestled him onto the smooth, cool surface and secured him there. In the process the backwards bill of his cap struck the surface of the table and it was knocked off his head, falling to the ground.

Once he was trapped the Quantrons each took up a position at a corner of the table and simply stood there, not responding to anything he said. Gradually his adrenaline-assisted frenzy faded and he was left to contemplate the full extent of the catastrophe he had caused.

Karen, his best friend and crush for the last year and a half, was dead. He'd only gotten a glimpse of her face before he turned his gaze away, but the horrific image of her staring, empty blue eyes and of the hole burned through her forehead would haunt him for the rest of his days. It was the last way he would've wanted to remember her, but it was the way he would.

T.J., too, was dead. His mentor and the leader of the rebellion, the one who had given them all hope, had been murdered and the only mercy involved was that Fred hadn't had to view his corpse as well.

At this very moment everyone else at camp was fighting and most likely dying. There wasn't even the possibility of evacuating in the ship under cloak as had been planned for an emergency, since the cloaking device had been disabled.

In his mind's eye he saw the faces of all those who had fought by his side, laughed with him, and lived with him. All of the heroes, young and old, who were willing to risk their lives to try to free Earth from Dark Specter's domination.

He'd killed them.

It had been _his_ decision to approach Justin. He was the one who had argued, against Karen's recommendation, that they should bring the teen to T.J.. All of this, **ALL OF IT**, was his fault!

When they had been poised on the very edge of victory he had destroyed the rebellion and with it perhaps humanity's last hope.

The reality of what he had done was almost too much for him to bear. He wept. He screamed. He strained against the clamps until his wrists ached and beyond.

Whatever tortures this sick freak had in mind for him . . . he deserved them, and worse.

An eternity dragged by before the four Quantrons abruptly turned as one to face the front of the room.

"Go out in the hall and wait there," a human voice commanded. The Quantrons immediately complied and another figure moved into Fred's field of view.

Justin Stewart no longer wore his Psycho Ranger armor. He had changed into shorts and a muscle shirt, both garments so dark blue they were almost black. He was smiling, his eyes sparkling and his movements exuberant as he strode up to the side of the table. He looked like an ordinary, athletic teenager, one who had perhaps just scored the winning touchdown in a vigorous pick-up game of football.

Except what he'd really been doing was slaughtering Fred's friends.

Knowing it was useless Fred strained against his metal restraints anyway, his sole desire to close his hands around that tanned throat. Once that happened he would not let go until one of them was dead.

"You're not going to break them, Fred. You're only hurting yourself," the teen observed with a sympathy Fred could only consider grotesque.

"You worthless traitor! How could you do this?" Fred screamed.

"Through the miracles of technology!" Justin answered snarkily. "Do you want to hear the story, or do you want to try to snap steel some more?"

What Fred wanted was to kill this abomination. The utter loathing he felt for himself paled in comparison to the seething hatred he had for Justin.

As he glared at his captor, though, he remembered something T.J. had told him during his first week at the rebel camp.

"Gather all the information you can before acting, Fred. The more knowledge you have, the greater your chances of success."

It had been good advice then, and it was good advice now. If this gloating SOB wanted to chat, then he'd be a fool to turn down the opportunity. Even knowing this, what came out of his mouth was, "Why should I listen to you? Everything you've told me was a lie!"

"It was not!" Justin protested. "I told you the truth as much as I could. Always stick as close as you can to the truth when you're lying, Fred. It makes it a lot harder for anybody to prove what you're saying is false, you don't risk messing up your story by forgetting the lies you've already told, and you've got a lot better chance at fooling people who're good at sensing deception."

A sly smile slipped across the adolescent's face. "And annoying as it is to have to wait to kill your enemies, it really is a whole lot of fun to trick them that way. You should try it sometime."

"Is that why you did all this? For _fun_?" Fred spat out.

"In a way," Justin conceded, his tone light with amusement. "Remember how T.J said I'd saved the Astros? I could only do that because a sentient jeep named Storm Blaster brought me there. I met him when I was a Turbo Ranger and somehow he could track me, no matter where I was. The Astro Rangers got captured trying to protect him, but he got away and came for me. I saved the Astro Rangers' lives, and I told them before I left that I'd always be there when they needed me."

"They never tried to get in touch with me again," Justin declared flatly. Now the amusement was gone from his voice. "But one person didn't forget about me: Astronema. Turns out she was the sister of Andros, the Red Ranger. When she found that out she went over to the Astros, but she got captured and her mind was cybernetically altered. That was while they were moving Zordon around to keep him away from the Astros. At one point they even had his tube sitting in Dark Specter's massive throne room on Eltar."

The names Zordon and Eltar meant nothing to Fred, but he didn't want to interrupt to ask for a clarification.

"After Dark Specter's army took Eltar and built his palace they set up some special trophies of their conquest: the remains of the Robot Rangers, androids modeled on the second Turbo team. When Astronema saw them on display there she noticed they still had their morphers and that's when she came up with the idea of creating a group of Rangers for the UAE."

"The power source for the Turbo Morphers was already on Eltar to begin with, but Astronmea wanted to go beyond just Turbo level warriors. She wanted to make sure the UAE's Rangers would be the mightiest in the galaxy! So she took the morphers to Dark Specter, Zedd, Finster, Klank and a few others. Together they modified and enhanced these beauties, using magic _and_ science. When they were done the only thing left was to do was to get the right people to wear the morphers, people who had the skills needed to be Rangers.

"Like I said, she remembered me and how I rode to the rescue on Storm Blaster. She devoted a lot of resources to locating and recapturing him. Once she did they extracted my location from his data banks. He didn't survive the process."

Was that actually _sorrow_ he heard in the bastard's voice? Over some kind of souped-up _vehicle_?

"Darkonda handled the next part, because it was something he had experience in. He was waiting for me when I got home from school. I didn't even have a chance to morph. He brought me to the Dark Fortress and they cybernetically altered me, too."

What? He couldn't seriously expect Fred to believe this, could he?

"You're telling me you're being mind-controlled?"

"Not the way you probably think. The device doesn't dictate my actions, but it has altered my emotions and it keeps them in that changed state. For example, I don't have a conscience anymore; I haven't felt guilty about a single thing I've done since the day they kidnapped me."

"And I just don't give a damn about humanity or other people, not the way I used to. I care a lot more about ME now! And of course the initial alteration put my aggression and bloodlust through the roof. There's a reason they named us the Psycho Rangers, Fred," Justin finished with self-satisfied smirk.

"So you sold out the whole human race and murdered your friends because you felt like it?" the teenage captive sneered.

"They weren't my friends anymore!" Justin snapped. He clenched his fists, his body virtually vibrating with tension. Then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and visibly relaxed. He circled around to Fred's left and rested a hand on the wrist manacle there.

"If I let you go, would you kill me?" he asked in a casually conversational tone.

"Try it and find out," Fred urged in a low voice.

"You would," Justin replied with a chuckle. "Even though I'm an innocent victim. Remember, I was kidnapped and my mind was altered against my will. None of what I've done is my fault, Fred."

"You still killed T.J.! You killed Karen! You deserve to die!"

"Not by the standards of human justice. Anyway, if you could short-circuit the cybernetic neural net in my head I'd be back on your side. We captured the Megaship intact, you know. If I wanted I could go there, get T.J.'s virus, teleport to China and accomplish his Endgame plan in five freaking minutes! I could save the world, Fred. In fact I might be the only one left who _could_ still save it! Knowing that, would you still kill me if you had the chance?"

What the hell was this? He'd been expecting physical torture, but at the moment his captor seemed more interested in playing mindgames. Did he really expect an answer?

And what was the answer? It was true that as a Psycho Ranger no one would question what Justin did. He really could put T.J.'s plan into action, but even if the circuitry in his head could somehow be disabled, how could Fred ever stand to work with him? How could he even allow Justin to live, after what he'd done, altered mind or not? Didn't all of the people Justin had murdered deserve to be avenged?

"See? I'm your last chance and you still can't bring yourself to say you wouldn't kill me. That's not logic guiding you, Fred; it's pure emotion. Emotion is what gets us up out of bed in the morning, what drives us, what motivates us! Change someone's feeling and you change the person. That's why the last thing my implant did was modify my feelings toward the Astro Rangers, especially T.J. I've been waiting over two years to kill him, and I can't begin to tell you how good it felt to finally do it!"

He smiled happily and Fred stared up at him in utter loathing.

"Anyway, once I'd had the cybernetics added I steered Astronema to the rest of the team. I knew where Tommy was because we'd been writing to each other-"

"Tommy? Not Tommy Oliver?" Fred interrupted pleadingly.

"Who do you think Psycho Red is, Fred? The Psycho Rangers ARE the first Turbo team. The A-List, not the second string B-Listers they stuck me with when they left. Tommy and the others were more experienced, more skilled and once they got the Psycho Morphers a whole lot more powerful! I knew that together we wouldn't have any trouble taking down the Astros."

"It was actually the Astro Rangers' own fault. If they hadn't been so incompetent that they needed to be saved by a fourteen year-old I never would have gotten on Astronema's radar. If they'd ever bothered to keep in touch with me afterwards they would have realized I'd been kidnapped and maybe they could have done something about it before Darkonda and I were able to abduct the others. They killed themselves, really," he concluded with a shrug.

How could he not want to kill this monster? Justin's callous words, however, made Fred think back to the exchange between the Psycho Ranger and Karen when they'd first met.

"Like Lt. Stone killed himself?" he threw out.

Justin snorted in response. "Stone killed himself in more ways than one! I had him under long-range surveillance after he recruited me, to cover all my bases. The night before he was supposed to tell me where to go he phoned information, got the number and called my Dad! I don't know what the hell he was thinking, breaking security like that! I know they were friends when Dad lived here, but still! Anyway, the instant he mentioned my name of course Dad started breaking down and asking if he'd seen me, saying I'd disappeared years ago. By the time the Quantron on duty let me know what was happening it was too late. I had a squad teleported directly to his house to snatch him, but he put a bullet in his head before they could stop him. Then I had to send a squad to grab Dad because he knew too much."

"You kidnapped your own father?"

"He wasn't hurt. I'm going to let him go soon, but I couldn't have him coming to Angel Grove and blowing my cover. I'd worked too hard to find you guys!"

"And I _had_ you, before Stone's stupidity! Afterwards the only thing I could think of was to start roving around the area where I thought you were in the hopes that I'd stumble on you. It was a long-shot, but I didn't have any other choice; I knew Dark Specter wasn't going to let me stay here much longer, not given the situation in the rest of the galaxy."

"What situation?" Fred asked. Here at last was something he desperately needed to know. T.J. had been certain that Dark Specter was involved in a war. Now he could find out whether that was true, whether there was any hope of liberation from offworld, since he and Justin had destroyed all hope of humanity freeing itself.

"Dark Specter thought that the death of Zordon and the conquest of Earth would cow the other free planets. He figured he could dominate the most of the rest of the worlds with barely a battle being fought."

"He was wrong."

"Zordon became a martyr and most of the advanced civilizations joined together in an alliance called the Galactic League of Light. A few months after the Conquest their first official action was to retake Eltar, in Zordon's memory, and that was the source of the Turbo portion of our powers!"

"So we were weakened at the very time we needed to be strong. It took months for the UAE to find a new power source which would compensate for what we lost with Eltar, and it wasn't like Dark Specter could simply retake the planet with Quantrons in the meantime; he'd already thrown his entire army at Earth. The rest of the UAE gave it a shot, but they were defeated. Then things got worse."

"Billy," he spat out the name, "was with the initial invading force. He saw the throne room and he took the remains of the Robot Rangers back to Aquitar. Somehow he managed to repair them and got them back on the front lines. And he keeps frigging upgrading them, every time we turn around! Last time Robot Ashley nailed us with her sonic scream, T.J. almost broiled us with his inbuilt plasma guns and my android picked up an entire downed fighter and threw it at me!"

If anything could have ever made Fred smile again, that might have. Quantron fighter craft weighed around four tons.

"I think we could take them if we could just face them one-on-one, but they're never alone! The Aquitan Rangers are always with them. It's ten against five, and when the Phantom Ranger or any of the others join them . . ."

Justin paced around the table, leaving Fred's line of sight momentarily.

"Even calling in and making all the monsters we could hasn't given us enough of an advantage to win. We did manage to take out the Blue Senturion and from what I've heard the surprise attack on Triforia got the Gold Ranger, but they've captured Divatox and scrapped Sprocket! When we lost Divatox we lost almost her entire force of Piranhatrons!"

"Why not side with your own people then? You said you can complete Endgame. Do that and you can still be on the winning side as a hero!"

The words sickened Fred even as he spoke them, but there was no choice. T.J. was right. When you made a mistake, even a catastrophic one, you had to try to fix it as soon as possible. You did whatever you needed to, no matter how much it cost you.

Of course he had no intention of letting this traitor escape justice, but Justin didn't have to know that.

The teenager looming over him was actually laughing as he came back into Fred's field of vision.

"Nice try, Fred, but the UAE has a lot more to offer me than the GLL does. As the Blue Psycho Ranger I'm one of the most powerful people in the galaxy and I can get virtually anything I want! We're treated like royalty and we still get to fight. It's like . . . it's like being a warrior prince," Justin finished triumphantly.

"So you enjoy your role as Dark Specter's lapdog?" Fred jeered in frustration.

Justin's face hardened, and at last the image of an ordinary teen fully faded away, to reveal the stone-cold killer beneath.

"Not lapdog, Fred; war dog. That's what the Psycho Rangers were meant to be. We were made to hunt down the Astro Rangers and then savage whoever else Dark Specter sicced us on. All the bloodlust and rage they gave us made us easy to direct, but I knew those feelings would only get in the way of catching T.J."

"It wasn't easy getting back to Earth," Justin declared, turning his back on Fred as he continued to speak. "I had to call in every chit I had to convince Dark Specter to let me come back and root out the rebellion before you did something really bad, like damaging our supply of Quantrons or hooking up somehow with the League. Eventually, though, he agreed to make me the temporary leader of Earth's counter-insurgency forces. I intensified aerial survelliance, had the likely Californian targets booby-trapped and took half a dozen other counter-measures, but I knew the best shot I had of finding you was through being recruited."

"Astronema wouldn't let us reveal ourselves to the Astros the way we wanted to. She ordered us to show them our identities only if they had us on the ropes and we needed to make them hesitate. She was being way too over-cautious, though! You haven't experienced real _power_, Fred, until you've morphed into a Psycho Ranger! They never had a chance against us."

"Because we'd never shown them who we were, though, I figured I could work my way into the rebellion. The only catch was that I had machinery sticking out all over my face! You've seen Astronema on TV, right? That's what we all looked like under our helmets. So I got to work with the Machine Empire and we miniaturized everything so that it could be implanted in my skull. For the new neural net I also knew I'd have to seriously downgrade my bloodlust and aggression and up the empathy a bit or I never could have passed for a normal person."

"After the surgery Rita used magic to heal me and regrow my hair. Magic might not be worth much for changing someone mentally, not on a permanent basis, but I gotta admit it's great for speeding up biological processes."

"I was all set to have my old alterations reinstalled and these new ones removed afterward, but I've changed my mind. I'm thinking so much more clearly now without all of that aggression clouding my mind. That's how I had the idea about you, Fred," Justin said, turning around to look down at Fred again.

"What idea about me?" Fred asked. He wouldn't have thought he could feel any worse than he did, but there was something about the way Justin was looking at him . . .

"If things had been a little different you could have been the one standing here in my place, Fred. Do you realize that?"

Of course he did! He'd realized it almost from the moment Justin had told him the story of becoming a Turbo Ranger. But whereas yesterday that thought had provoked wistful envy, now it brought nothing more than nausea.

"You're more than qualified to be a Ranger. You're great at the martial arts, you're brave, you're mentally and emotionally tough, and I've seen for myself that you never stop fighting. You _deserved_ to be a Ranger, but they abandoned you, even more than they did me. I won't make the same mistake."

"What are you talking about?" Fred whispered, a terrible presentiment of doom stealing over him.

"Why do you think I told you what was going on? We're outmatched right now. We need help. We need a sixth Ranger, and that's you, Fred."

"No. NO! I'll **never** join you!" Fred screamed at the top of his lungs.

"You will, you know," Justin contradicted him gently. "I just finished talking with Dark Specter before I came in here and he approved it. And when the process is over you'll thank me for it."

"I'll kill myself first!" Fred fervently swore.

That got more of a reaction than anything Fred had said so far. A genuine look of alarm appeared on Justin's face and turning his head he shouted for the Quantrons.

"Yes, my lord?" an electronic voice questioned.

"Retake your positions around the table," Justin instructed. "Keep the prisoner from injuring himself in any way. That is your task until I say differently."

Bending over, Justin scooped up Fred's cap and set it on the table beside his head.

"Sorry, Fred. I was going to bring you dinner, but it looks like we can't risk turning you loose until after the operation. I'll make sure you get intravenous feeding within the next hour. It should only be a couple of days before your neural net and morpher will both be ready."

As Justin departed Fred made a promise to himself. He would spend however long he had left focusing on feeling the way he did now, on holding onto his soul. He had the advantage of knowing what was coming and forewarned was forearmed. This was his last chance to redeem himself, to keep from becoming a monster like Justin. He wasn't about to waste it.

ΩΩΩΩΩ

Still complaining about being used as a healer/hair regrower Rita exited the room and headed toward the teleporter, leaving Fred and Justin alone. The dark-haired teen should be waking up any- ah!

Fred's eyes fluttered open. He sat up, no longer restrained by the manacles, and his gaze immediately focused on the Blue Psycho Ranger.

"How do you feel?" Justin asked.

"Like I want my morpher," Fred said bluntly. "Is it in there?" he asked, pointing to the long metal case Justin had taken from the nearby work bench.

"This is your morphing device," the teenage genius confirmed, opening the lid a little reluctantly. He had thought they would use the spare Blue Turbo morpher for Fred, the one from his android duplicate. That had been his idea, but Dark Specter had a different plan. He had instead modified the recently captured staff of the Gold Ranger, adding greatly to the energy within and at the same time making it more compatible for a human wielder. Given what Justin had seen of the Gold Ranger in action, there was no question whatsoever that Fred was going to be by far the strongest Psycho Ranger in existence. Which was a little worrying, and made Justin glad he'd added the extra emotional alteration to Fred's neural net.

Reaching in Fred took out the staff and in an instant he was wearing the black and gold armor of the Gold Psycho Ranger. For a handful of seconds he stood perfectly still, undoubtedly overwhelmed by the sheer ecstasy of the vast power he now possessed. Raising his left fist he effortlessly smashed it down through the metal of the table. Then he turned to Justin and punched the seventeen year-old in the stomach.

All the breath went out of him in a whoosh as he doubled over, the sudden pain paralyzing him. He felt himself flying into the wall, his back smacking up against it and he dropped wheezing to the floor.

What had gone wrong? How could this be happening, especially with the program he'd added? He tried to reach for his morpher, but Fred's shadow was already falling over him. He raised his eyes to take in his attacker, who towered over him.

"That was for sucker punching me back at the ship," Fred sneered proudly down at Justin. "No one fucking does that to Fred Kelman, the Gold Psycho Ranger!"

Though still having trouble catching his breath, Justin laughed as Fred extended a white-gloved hand downward and he grasped it in his own.

ΩΩΩΩΩ

Something had gone wrong.

That was the only conclusion Cassie could draw. According to the schedule they'd worked out T.J. and the Megaship should have landed in the field yesterday. If everything was still going as planned he would have been there.

So she knew a problem had come up but she didn't know what the difficulty might be or how bad it was and the uncertainty was almost driving her out of her mind. For once she was glad it took so much concentration to properly assemble Quantrons, as it gave her a distraction from her omnipresent worry.

Her first instinct was to find transport back to Angel Grove and then head to camp, but then there was every chance she would miss them in transit. She had to give them a least a couple more days.

It didn't help that this was the longest she and T.J. had been apart after they had gotten together. He had been her friend since they became Rangers, but now he was so much more. She didn't know how she had managed to go so long without seeing him. If anything had happened to him . . .

Focus, Cassie chided herself. Focus on the task at hand. There were harsh penalties for everyone if any factory worker was found "sabotaging" the Quantrons and it was all too easy for the overseers to deem a simple error to be an act of sabotage.

When the shift change bell rang Cassie actually jumped. Quickly finishing the installation of the microprocessor she rose to join the human throng exiting the factory.

Maybe whatever had gone wrong had been worked out, she told herself as the trudged toward the exit. Maybe when she went by the field tonight she would find T.J., the Megaship and the entire resistance waiting for her.

Cassie stumbled as the short, stout woman to her left abruptly swerved into her, throwing her off balance. She realized that everyone was veering right as they reached the door, shying away from the figure standing just to the left of the entrance.

A figure wearing the gold and black armor of a Psycho Ranger.

No! The Psycho Rangers hadn't been seen on Earth for over a year! They couldn't be back, not now, not here! And this wasn't one of those the Astros had fought. Had _new_ Psycho Rangers been created?

His helmet was moving slowly as he looked over every face in the crowd. Cassie froze when the helmet turned toward her and stopped.

Then the Ranger was moving, pushing his way through a crowd which melted fearfully before him, opening a path to his target. Cassie grabbed for her morpher, but he was already on top of her, seizing her wrist in a painful grip of iron.

"Cassie, it's me!" he hissed and she paused in total confusion. The words weren't spoken in the machine-like tones of a Psycho Ranger; it was a real, human voice. More than that, it was a voice she knew.

"F-Fred?" she asked in utter disbelief.

"Don't ask any questions! Just tell me, is there any place we can go to talk? One where the guards won't be watching?"

There were a thousand questions Cassie wanted to ask, but instead of posing them she answered Fred's question.

"The southern loading bay should be empty right now."

He dragged her all the way there, past the machinery, the parts and the incoming workers, his punishingly tight hold never loosening. When they arrived at the closed doors he finally released her.

"Fred! Why are you dressed like that? What the hell is going on?" she demanded, gently cradling the wrist she was sure was bruised all the way to the bone. "Where's T.J.?"

"T.J's dead, Cassie, and so is everyone else. You and I are all that's left of the resistance," Fred asserted, and just like that Cassie Chan's entire world shattered.


	5. Chapter 5

Her first instinctive reaction was rejection, denial. The surreal nature of Fred telling her this while clothed in the garb of a Psycho Ranger lent an air of dreamlike unreality to the proceedings. Maybe this was nothing more than another nightmare; she'd certainly had her share of those since the Conquest! Soon she might awaken in her great-aunt's house, or better yet in T.J.'s strong arms.

That desperate hope died within her as she listened to the sounds of the next shift taking their place in the factory, smelled the industrial scent of metal in the air and felt the throbbing ache in her right wrist.

This wasn't a dream.

She stared into Fred's faceless helmet, her already watering eyes pleading with him to take it back, to admit that he'd made a mistake. He answered her unspoken entreaty with his own silence.

"How?" she managed to whisper.

"Justin fucking Stewart," Fred spat out. "Karen and I found him wandering around in the mountains and I decided we should bring him to T.J. T.J. told him about the Endgame plan and right after that he turned on us! He killed Karen, killed T.J. and brought me to Ecliptor's palace in D.C. Then he went back with a legion of Quantrons and slaughtered everyone else."

"Justin would never do that!" Cassie protested, shocked by the very idea.

"Yes, he would! Cassie, Justin is the Blue Psycho Ranger! Tommy's the red one and the rest of the first Turbo team is Green, Pink and Yellow!"

The revelations were coming at her almost too fast for her to even take them in, much less process them. Their predecessors in the Power. . . were the _Psycho Rangers_? How could that be?

"They did the same thing to the old Turbos that they did to Astronema," Fred went on impatiently, guessing her thoughts. "And then they did it to me."

The last sentence somehow managed to slice through Cassie's burgeoning grief and despair, shifting her focus and concern to the figure standing before her.

"Then why aren't you-"

"Ripping you limb from limb?" Fred interrupted. "I knew it was coming and I concentrated as much as I could beforehand on what I believed then. The device works by altering your emotions and changing how you feel about things. It's almost impossible to hold on to your old beliefs when you feel completely differently."

"Is there anything I can do-"

Again Fred cut her off. "Don't worry about me. We're almost out of time and you've got a decision to make."

Now? He couldn't be serious! Right now it was costing her almost everything she had just to keep functioning, and the mercifully numbing shock of Fred's news hadn't even worn off yet. She was in no shape to decide anything!

"Justin sent me here to kill you. Before that, though, he had me helping out with the Megaship because I'd lived in it and I was the only person left DECA would obey. While I was there I managed to download a copy of the Endgame virus."

As he shifted the staff he was holding to his left hand Fred was abruptly engulfed in a cocoon of golden light. When the glow faded his Psycho Ranger uniform was gone. Instead he wore black jeans and a sleeveless shirt made of a shimmering, lightweight golden fabric. His face held the same grimness she was used to seeing from him during a mission, but his trademark backwards baseball cap was gone. It wouldn't have fit under his helmet in any case, but she had never seen him without it and its absence only increased her already overwhelming sense of disorientation.

Reaching into his right hip pocket Fred pulled out a flash drive and immediately remorphed.

The rectangular piece of technology looked so tiny sitting there in Fred's gloved hand, so insignificant. Yet it held the fruit of two years of effort and struggle, everything they'd worked and fought for since the resistance began. It was the weapon they would use to free Earth from Dark Specter's domination.

"I could let you go out this door and run," Fred stated, gesturing towards the closed loading bay door. "Afterwards I'll go up to the computer room, download this virus and then tell Justin you weren't here. He'll start searching the country for you, but you might be able to avoid being caught."

"If we play it that way, though, and he's the least bit suspicious, if he does any kind of double-checking at all, like looking at the security camera footage or questioning the Quantrons, then we've had it. We lose our last chance. We lose _everything_!"

"What's else can we do?" Cassie asked plaintively. By all rights she should be the one taking charge and laying out their options, but she didn't have a plan and it was clear Fred did.

"I could give you the flash drive and you could run straight for the computer room. I'll order the Quantrons not to touch you, tell them you're mine. I'll chase after you, but I'll let you get to the computer room first. There shouldn't be anyone in there. Download the virus into the system. Then I'll corner you there and kill you."

Cassie started, wondering if she'd heard him correctly.

"I'll take your morpher and body back to Justin. I'll tell him I let you almost download the virus and killed you right before you could, just to play with you. He'll believe that."

"You would actually kill me?" Cassie queried of her comrade and friend of almost two years, her tone heavy with disbelief.

"If you agree to it," Fred responded with bone-chilling calm. "It's the only way I can think of that we can definitely fool Justin. If I really do kill you he'll be sure I'm on the UAE's side.

"Why couldn't I defeat you and escape?"

Fred snorted mirthlessly. "Or I could tell Justin straight out that I deliberately let you go. He'd be less likely to figure things out that way than if I tried to make him believe _you_ could beat me."

The disdainful contempt in Fred's voice stung her as he went on.

"You've faced the rest of the Psycho Rangers, Cassie. You know how badly they outclassed you. Well, I'm further beyond them than they were beyond you! You can't even begin to imagine the kind of power I've got now," Fred concluded darkly.

Cassie believed him.

The new Psycho Ranger drew in a deep breath and let it out. "We're out of time, Cassie. You're still the leader. What do you want to do?"

For most people the question wouldn't even need to be asked. Given a choice between certain death and life, who wouldn't choose life?

Yet she and T.J. had founded the resistance on the belief that there were things which were more important than your own life. There were ideals worth fighting and even dying for if need be, one of which was human freedom. To be a Power Ranger required being willing to sacrifice yourself for the good of others. There was no choice to be made here.

Cassie morphed into the Pink Ranger and held out her right hand. "Give me the flash drive," she ordered firmly.

Fred handed it over without a word. Cassie closed her fist around it, ignoring the pain from her wrist, and closed her eyes. She and T.J. had never dared talk about what they would do after the war, but that hadn't stopped her from thinking about it. She'd imagined their wedding, their honeymoon, and the whole course of their married life once Earth had been freed.

That dream had died with T.J. and now her own life was also about to end. Knowing the man she loved was already gone made it easier to contemplate death, as did the realization that with this final act she would at last be making up for the failure of the Astro Rangers to stop the Psycho Rangers. It would take another year, but ultimately Earth would be free.

Maybe that was why she and T.J. had been spared in the first place, why they'd lived on where their friends had died.

Cassie opened her eyes and regarded the Pyscho Ranger before her calmly.

"What are you going to do after I'm gone?"

"I'll play along for as long as I have to. Right now I'm thinking of turning on the Psycho Rangers the first time we're in battle. If I can take them out the Galactic League of Light's got a much better shot of beating the UAE, maybe even before the year is up."

Cassie started to voice a question, but Fred interrupted. "You have to go now, Cassie."

With a brief nod the Pink Astro Ranger turned and sprinted out of the loading bay, reaching the main floor and heading for the large set of reinforced stairs that no human was allowed to ascend.

Her appearance caused an instant reaction among the factory's workers and guards. Some people stood frozen, staring at her, while others shrieked. Still others ducked for cover and a heartbreakingly large number cheered! She could only hope no serious harm would come to that last group.

She raced past half a dozen conveyor lines, streaking for the stairs. Laser bolts began to sizzle past her.

"Don't shoot her! Don't even touch her! She's mine!"

The words were spoken in the electronic tone of a Pyscho Ranger, not in Fred's normal voice, and the guards obeyed at once.

"Go ahead, run! You can't escape me, Cassie. You're already dead!"

Ignoring the taunting threat the Pink Ranger continued her sprint until she finally reached the bottom step of the staircase. She glanced back at her ally as she neared the top of the stairs. He was still standing next to southern loading bay. Then he turned into a black and gold blur which flashed across the distance between where he'd been standing and the foot of the stairs in less than three seconds.

Cassie stumbled, her foot missing the next step and had to frantically grab at the rail with her left hand.

"I'm going to have so much fun killing you!" the Gold Psycho Ranger assured her from only about twenty feet beneath her, her lead cut down to virtually nothing.

Cassie almost threw herself into the corridor at the top of the stairs, a passage which had only two doors. The one midway down led into the Quantron barracks and recharging facility which took up virtually the entire top floor. The door at the end led into the mainframe computer for the facility.

Behind her she could hear Fred mounting the stairs, though thankfully not with the super-speed he'd displayed on the ground floor. She ran down the corridor, hoping to get past the barracks door before it opened and disgorged a squad of Quantrons.

There! She was past it. Behind her, terribly close, she heard the Gold Psycho Ranger say, "It's over, bitch."

The door to the computer room slid aside at her approach and when she entered the room she stopped so abruptly that she almost fell over. Contrary to Fred's assurance, there was one figure in the small room, leaning against the mainframe that took up the back wall.

"Now what do you think you're doing?" asked the amused, noticeably deeper, but still recognizable voice of Justin Stewart from beneath the blue helmet.

Before today she would have attacked instantly, fury and hate overwhelming any rational calculation. Now even knowing that he'd killed T.J., the knowledge that it was Justin under there and that he wasn't acting of his own free will made her hesitate, long enough for Fred to catch up behind her and enter the room.

"Cassie! What are you-" he started to say, and fell silent when he noticed the third occupant.

"You really let me down, Fred. I gave you more than most people could even dream about, and _this_ is how you repay me?!" Justin demanded, the Psycho Axe appearing in his hands.

"Sorry!" the Gold Psycho Ranger sneered sarcastically, readying his staff before him. "Get to the computer," he whispered to Cassie. Then he was past her, bringing his staff down in a blow aimed at the other Psycho Ranger's head, an assault barely blocked by his victim's axe.

Unable to help Cassie could only watch as they fought in front of the computer, Psycho Ranger against Pyscho Ranger. Then Fred landed a blow to the midsection with one end of his staff and a crack over the helmet with the other. He kicked Justin to one side and the way was clear.

The entire run across the factory seemed to take less time than it did for her to cover the twenty feet between her and the computer. She nearly fumbled the flash drive as she searched frantically for the data entry port.

There! She inserted the drive and a wave of overpowering relief swept through her as the light next to the port glowed. The screen lit up with the question "Download?" and she pressed the yes key hard enough to break it. Another eternity passed before the screen said "Download complete".

Cassie removed the flash drive, a feeling of overpowering relief sweeping over her. They'd done it! It had cost them literally everything, but they'd done it. Another year of oppression was all that the people of Earth would have to endure. Then the occupation would come to a sudden, violent end. Then humanity would be free.

She turned around and saw the Blue Psycho Ranger lying on his back, Fred kneeling over him and holding both axe and staff to Justin's throat.

"We have to kill him, Cassie," Fred insisted as she walked to his side. "Do you want to do it?"

Did she want to kill the Blue Psycho Ranger? The one who'd murdered Zhane, who'd murdered T.J.? The shy, genius kid who'd helped show her how to be a Ranger? The friend who had been turned against her against his will?

"No," Cassie murmured quietly.

"You can't win," Justin snarled from the floor. "I have something you'll never have," he swore, looking directly at Cassie.

She was so tired now, all of the energy, all of the purpose drained out of her. She had done what she needed to. She didn't really care what this mockery of her friend thought he had that they didn't, but she asked anyway.

"What's that?"

"A teammate I can trust," Justin replied smugly.

No one and nothing had ever before hit Cassie half as hard as Fred did in that instant, striking with both weapons and sending her flying into and almost threw the wall behind her.

She crumpled to the floor, trying to breathe with broken ribs, feeling the blood pumping out of the gaping wound in her chest. She managed to lift herself halfway up, like a person doing a push-up, amid the sound of male laughter.

"You were right, Justin," Fred's voice exulted. "Playing with them beforehand like this is fun!"

"Told you."

Slowly Cassie raised her head to see the two teenage Pyscho Rangers towering over her, each holding his respective weapon.

"Good-bye, bitch," Fred sneered before pouncing on her.

ΩΩΩΩΩ

Sekarias was a small world with a native population well under fifteen million. Sekarians were bipeds with opposable thumbs, rubbery green skin, five eyes, no nose two arms and three legs arranged in a tripod formation. Their techonology level was well above Earth's, but below that of most advanced civilizations. Situated on the outer edge of the Milky Way, a few light years beyond the border of the UAE's territory, Sekarias had always maintained a policy of strict neutrality in the hope that doing so would ensure its continued prosperity and freedom.

Today Justin, Fred and Tommy were crushing that futile, foolish hope.

A blindingly fast blur of black and gold smashed its way through a squad of Royal Guardsman before resolving itself into the armored form of Fred Kelman. Even with only half of the Psychos present the storming of the Sekarian Royal Palace was proving almost too easy, Justin mused as he casually picked off a sniper on one of the balconies overlooking the cavernous reception hall.

Kat, Aisha and Adam were busy securing Triforia against any counter-attack, so it was left to the other half of the team to perform the terror attack on Sekarias, a measure meant to frighten the world into submission.

Of course there was no reason this task couldn't have waited until after they had engaged and crushed the Robot Rangers and Aquitian Rangers. No reason except for one: the Psycho Rangers were Tommy's team, and he had been driven to fury by Dark Specter's decision to add a new member without consulting him. The fact that the addition was someone had known and trained had mitigated his rage only a little and they were here so that the Red Psycho Ranger could judge their recruit in action. If he thought their newest teammate was a liability . . .

Fortunately Fred was setting a new "gold standard" for blood-soaked skillfulness and efficiency. Thus far he had killed almost as many Sekarian soldiers as Justin and Tommy combined! Nor was his assault tempered by any hint of mercy or compassion; he brutally butchered all in his path without hesitation. The seventeen year-old used the extensive Gold Psycho Ranger abilities as expertly as if he'd been born with them.

It was enough to spark jealousy in Justin, and Tommy's appreciation of Fred's display of prowess was clearly marred by resentment at the sheer scale of the teen's raw power.

For his part Fred hadn't forgiven his former mentor for failing to make sure that Fred was chosen as a Ranger years ago. Still it was doubtful that the antipathy between them would lead to Tommy attacking the Gold Psycho Ranger. By now their leader must have realized that even both he and Justin going up against Fred together would likely be a losing proposition.

And if it did come down to a fight, Justin would not be battling on Tommy's side.

The decision was not made solely for the sake of personal survival. He and Fred were the only Psycho Rangers whose neural nets provided for moderately elevated aggression and minimal empathy. It gave them a different perspective than that shared by the other Psycho Rangers.

Now that he could think clearly Justin could see why the original specifications had been programmed to induce such psychosis. For one thing it made the Rangers much easier to direct. Dark Specter or Astronmema had only to point the way, and the entire team would charge forward, eager to slake their thirst for blood. It also precluded any real unity or loyalty among the team members; each was out only for him or herself.

Fred took point again as they stormed into the passages beyond the hall, his staff smashing apart heads and pulping bodies. Tommy snarled beside him as they searched for victims of their own.

With he and Fred it was different. They could actually appreciate each other, even like each other and enjoy one another's company. It was . . . nice to have a friend again, especially since he knew he could always rely on Fred to feel friendship and loyalty towards him. That was the little extra he'd programmed into his teammate's neural net before it had been activated.

A lot like the change he'd made to the Endgame virus, really. All of the previous directives had been deleted and a single new one added. From now on all Quantrons produced from Earth's factory would obey his orders over anyone else's.

He had no immediate plans to make use of the change, but it seemed a wise precaution for the future, a subject which was coming to occupy more and more of his thoughts.

Dark Specter ruled the UAE through fear and personal power, but while that ensured compliance it did nothing to build loyalty. Would everyone remain content to serve the Emperor of Evil? Or would one or more of his underlings someday seek to betray him? And where would the Psycho Rangers stand in such a civil war?

As anticipated, the throne room was empty when they reached it. While Tommy communicated with their orbiting cruiser to see if their sensor focus had been able to detect the royal family's path of flight, Fred casually sent a surge of energy along the length of his staff which vaporized the blood and brain matter clinging to it. The fact that he kept his grip on the weapon while doing this and didn't suffer the scorched hand any other Psycho Ranger would have was mere grandstanding on his part.

There wasn't a single doubt in Justin's mind that their sixth Ranger would decisively tip the scales in the war against the League's Rangers, but given his love of showing off his newfound superiority it was good to know Fred would never be a threat to him, quite the opposite.

The rest of the team he could not count on. They would obey Tommy, but not him. Unfortunately Tommy was no longer the Red Ranger he had once been, his ability to plan ahead and think clearly severely compromised by his neural net. It was a pity, but there was no real solution for it. Even if he could persuade Tommy to switch to a different neural net, such a move would probably give too much away to the UAE's other luminaries. As it was no one knew that he had given Fred a cybernetic device almost identical to his own and Dark Specter had been too pleased with his success on Earth to command that he return to using his old modification.

On the other hand, if Tommy were to fall in battle . . . Not here and not now; everyone of consequence knew why Tommy had taken him and Fred to Sekarias and to return without him would trigger terrible consequences. There were many battles yet to be fought, though, and with Fred's resentment of Tommy it probably wouldn't be too hard to persuade his friend to help. Something could be arranged with a little planning, a demise which would occur outside the view of Adam, Kat and Tanya and could be blamed on the GLL. And with Tommy gone, who would be selected as the new Red Ranger? Who among them enjoyed the fullest measure of Dark Specter's favor, having prevented a galactic disaster, extinguished the insurgency, taken care of the last two Astro Rangers and brought in the prisoner who had become their mightiest Psycho Ranger?

Justin Stewart, leader of the Psycho Rangers.

He liked the sound of that.

"_All this time you were pretending_

_so much for my happy ending"_

_The Happy Ending_, by Arvil Lange

**THE END**

_Afterword_: My sincere thanks to all my readers for following my story! I hope none of you were too disappointed with how it turned out. I posted it in the tragedy category in the first place because I always intended for it to end like this (which is why I was extremely careful in writing the first two chapters. Look back and you'll see certain thoughts and events portrayed therein make much more sense in light of Justin's true allegiance). Here's why.

To start with, perhaps my primary motivation for writing fanfiction is to correct what I see as story injustices, events which in my opinion should have gone differently. In this story I addressed four such errors.

The first was the identity of the Psycho Rangers. I hoped at the time the episodes were broadcast that these new Psycho Rangers were actually the old Turbo team, which would have been a fantastic twist and much better than what we actually got.

The second error was the gang's failure to call on Justin during Countdown, when they needed everyone they could get. Yes, I understand Saban probably didn't want to shell out the money to get the actor back, but in terms of the plot the decision to exclude him made little sense. Here, too, the Rangers didn't bother to keep in touch with Justin, but in this universe there were consequences for that decision.

Third was the complete failure of the writers to ever have Justin really turn to the side of evil, either through magic or technology. Worse, this failure has continued in the fanfiction realm! Offhand I can only think of two stories in which Justin Stewart ever turns to the dark side, both of which place him in charge of the bad guys. Now I can understand the temptation to do this, certainly, but I always believed an evil Justin would function best as an in-place agent and saboteur. Keep his turning evil a secret and the young genius is in the perfect position to sabotage the Zords, destroy the Power Chamber, turn Alpha Six into scrap, murder Dmitria and finally violently betray the other Power Rangers in the middle of a battle! Because of his youth and innocence he's also the last one they would think to suspect, while being smarter and more technologically skilled than any of them. So I suppose one reason why they never did this in the series is because evil Justin would have won and all the other Power Rangers would have been killed.

The last error was the line at the end of the first movie about Fred being "in line to be a Ranger yourself one day" and him playfully musing about being the Silver or Gold Ranger. For Pete's sake, don't throw something like that into your story unless you're going to follow up on it (Oddly, the writers for SPD confronted a similar situation and very pointedly avoided repeating the movie's mistake! I tip my hat to them for that, but their competence didn't do poor Fred any good)! Instead Fred completely disappeared from the PR universe after the movie ended. Here that, too, had consequences and Fred finally got his due! Granted, not in the way he would have wished, but I wanted this to be a tragedy.

Why so intent on making it a tragedy? Three reasons. First, I'd read a funny movie recap in which the writer used the line "Yeah, like we believe the hero is going to get killed twenty minutes into the movie." For the most part you simply can't do that in movies, but you CAN do it in fanfiction. I was taken with the idea of writing a story which appeared a standard "good guys coming from behind to win", only to show that the main hero was really a villain and the other heroes were doomed to be killed or turned evil early on. I liked the idea of subverting my readers' expectations and smashing the usual clichés, like the standard "jerk who doesn't like the hero coming into the resistance" being absolutely _right_ for a change!

Second, I'm past the stage where I like to see the good guys win all the time. Now I enjoy watching evil triumph once in a while, especially if the villains are visibly superior to the heroes. It feels more realistic and it is certainly more unexpected and surprising.

Finally I'd never done a tragedy before, and I enjoyed coming up with this one, not the least because the good guys were so close to winning when things started going wrong! And it was a lot of fun to throw in so many twists. This is far and away the most twisted tale I've ever written, in a couple of senses.

I might well pen a sequel to this one someday, especially since in spite of how it looks things aren't over yet! The Aquitan and Robot Rangers are going to get seriously mauled, its true, but Billy was always ready for something like this and he will teleport at least a few of them to safety in time. Then he'll have no choice but to play the card he's been holding in reserve, keeping for the last desperate need. I'd tell you what his strategy is, faithful readers, but I'm afraid that is another story . . .


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